Thousands March on 40th Land Day to Protest Decades of Land Grabs
Local Editor
Thousands of Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory marched Wednesday to commemorate the 40th Land Day, protesting decades of "Israeli" land grabs.
Hundreds of Gazans marched from the city towards the Erez crossing in the coastal enclave's north, waving Palestinian flags and demanding the right of return of Palestinian refugees forced to leave their land when the "Israeli" entity was established in 1948.
Senior Fatah leader Zakariyya al-Agha also addressed Gaza's rally, telling protesters: "The martyrs who fell on that day embodied national unity," in reference to the six unarmed Palestinians gunned down 40 years ago.
"As the Palestinian people mark Land Day, they are still facing an ["Israeli"] policy based on ethnic cleansing and land confiscation, and the Netanyahu government continues with its racist plans to deport the Palestinians and build "Israeli" settlements and separation walls," he said.
In the occupied West Bank's Ramallah district, Palestinian students from al-Quds Open University and Modern University College who were marking Land Day managed to cut through a barbed-wire section of Israel's separation wall east of al-Bireh.
The students crossed the wall, reaching confiscated agricultural lands and raising a Palestinian flag before "Israeli" forces intervened. Forces then chased the demonstrators firing rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs, and tear gas.
The PLO for its part slammed the "Israeli" entity's "racist" policy of allocating land solely for its settlers at the expense of the land's indigenous Palestinian population.
This year's Land Day commemorations follow a new wave of land grabs in the occupied Palestinian territory that rights groups said mark a return to an "Israeli" regime policy not seen since the pre-Oslo period in the 1980s.
The "Israeli" settlement watchdog "Peace Now" also condemned the confiscations saying that the "Israeli" apartheid regime "is adding fuel to the fire and sending a clear message to Palestinians, as well as to "Israelis", that it has no intention to work towards peace and two states."
Despite repeated condemnations by the international community, the "Israeli" entity had come under little actual pressure to halt its settlement program, land seizures, or the forced displacement of Palestinian communities.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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