Palestinians Across the World Commemorate Land Day

WAFA
March 30, 2006

KUFR KANNA, March 30, 2006 (WAFA) - Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Israel and the exile marked Thursday "The Palestinian Land Day", taking to the streets in protest against Israel's continued policy of land grab.

Land Day commemorates the bloody killing of six Palestinians in the Galilee on March 30, 1976 by Israeli troops during peaceful protests over the seizure of their lands.

On that day, Palestinians in Israel held a general strike of denial, protesting the expropriation and colonization of their land.

In return, Israeli authorities responded to the demonstrations with violence, killing 6 Palestinians, in addition to injuring 96 others and arresting over 300.

Palestinian villages and towns were declared as closed military zones by Israeli authorities and a curfew imposed on a number of them.

It has since become a painful reminder of Israeli injustice and oppression against the Palestinian people, and a day for demonstration linking all Palestinians in their adherence to their land.

Today, joining their brothers in marking this national day, Palestinians in Israel have as usual commemorated this event.

Thousands of them have marched the streets of Kufr Kanna and ended up at a cemetery where the martyr Muhseen Taha, one of the six killed by the Israeli troops in 1967, was laid to rest, laying wreaths of flowers at the grave.

In East Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers arrested four citizens during a march commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Land Day, leading them to an unknown spot.

The soldiers hurled sound grenades and tear gas canisters at protestors and attacked the march whose participants carried placards and slogans calling for ending the occupation and liberating the Palestinian land.

The Israeli police kept the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound completely closed throughout the day.

Thousands of Israeli Arab citizens have also marked Land Day in Lod, where thousands of demonstrators marched from the city's biggest mosque to city hall.

In the West Bank cities and towns, Palestinians also commemorated this event through demonstrating against Israel's building of the Apartheid Wall and seizure of Palestinian-owned land, specially in the Jordan Valley.

Commemorating the even outside Palestine, the Palestinian popular committee at Bared Refugee Camp in north Lebanon said that Palestinians across the globe proved to the world that they are united, and the sacrifices of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and those living in lands occupied in 1948 known as Arab Israelis are the same.

The group said that the commemoration will continue as long as Israel continues its occupation.

Children of Ein al-Helwa Refugee Camp in Lebanon also marked the event. Hundreds of the children waved Palestinian flags and placards saying "we need to live like the rest of the children of the world" and " why do the occupation kill the Palestinian children.

As the Palestinian people mark the 30th anniversary of Palestinian "Land Day," Israel's illegal colony expansion and land seizure continues unabated, even at a time in which the need for calm, peace and justice is more pressing than ever before.

recently, Israeli Acting Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, decided to expand Israel's borders that incorporate larger West Bank colonies and to seize the Jordan valley, pursuing a unilateral pullout plan.
 

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