Thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel protest for Gaza on Land Day

Thousands of Palestinians living within Israel’s 1948 borders have protested on the 48^thanniversary of Land Day, calling for an end to Israel’s indiscriminate war on the Gaza Strip.

On 30^th March 1976, Israeli troops killed six unarmed Palestinian citizens of Israel who were protesting against a planned seizure of huge swathes of Palestinian land in the Galilee region by the Israeli government.

That event has been commemorated worldwide by Palestinians and their supporters ever since as Land Day, a symbol of the Palestinian national struggle.

It was among the first and most significant acts of resistance against Israel by its Palestinian citizens.

Palestinian citizens of Israel make up just over 20% of Israel’s population. They are the descendants of Palestinians who were not expelled from their homes by Zionist militias during the creation of Israel.

An estimated 10,000 people took part in the Land Day march in Deir Hana in northern Israel, where the 1976 Land Day protests and killings happened.

Sheikh Awad Dahabra began the event with a minute’s silence to commemorate the dead and said, “Land Day is not a memory, because a memory is an event which has finished but Palestine is a land that remains and a wound that bleeds and pain that stays with the continuation of occupation”.

Saeed Hussein, the head of Deir Hana’s local council said, “This anniversary has come during harsh times for our brothers and sisters in Gaza, with attempts to break their will and falsify the story”.

Among the slogans chanted by the marchers was “Gaza will not be broken by tanks and bombs”.

Israel’s indiscriminate war on the Gaza Strip has killed 32,705 people and left f the territory in ruins, caused most of the population to flee their homes. It has been likened to a second Nakba – the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1948.

Father Simon Khoury, a priest from Kaf Kanna, told The New Arab’s Arabic-language site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, “The Nakba has not finished, we are still living a Nakba every day. On Land Day we should not forget us.”