Celebrating Land Day; Celebrating Palestine

29  March 2010

http://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/celebrating-the-land-celebrating-palestine/

By Reham Alhelsi

The Palestinian calendar is full of special days. Growing up, day after day and year after year, we were introduced to these special days, and with time more such days joined our calendar. Almost every month there is something to commemorate; a day to commemorate the Nakba of the Palestinian people, a day to remember the martyrs killed by the Israeli occupation army, a day to remember every crime committed by Israel and its allies against the people of Palestine. And there are days when we celebrate our legitimate rights: we celebrate our right to self-determination by remembering the heroes of our resistance movement, we celebrate our right to live freely in our land by remembering the prisoners imprisoned for freedom, and we celebrate our right to live by celebrating Palestinian mothers, celebrating Palestinian children and celebrating the reason for all other celebrations: we celebrate Palestine. But of all the Palestinian special days, maybe one of the most important days is the Palestinian “Land Day”. In addition to the Nakba commemoration day, the “Land Day” was somehow always dominant. It is a day of protest; a day when demonstrations and marches unite Palestinians in occupied Palestine with those in the Diaspora. It is a day we all participate in because it is our day; the day of the Palestinian people and their land. It is a day to commemorate and a day of tribute to those who fell for Palestine, for the land and for our national identity. It is a day to shout out loudly that we are all part of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause, sharing the identity, the pain and the struggle. It is a day of solidarity amongst Palestinians everywhere and with the whole free conscientious world. It is a day to embrace the land, to embrace Palestine. Land day is Palestine day, a day of protest against Zionism and its Zionist entity and its theft of Palestinian land. Land Day is a day for us to declare that we are all Palestine and that Palestine is one: from the River to the Sea.

My earliest memory of the Land Day was when I was a small child staying at my grandparents house in Dheisheh refugee camp. That morning, the house was completely empty except for my grandmother, my sister and me. After hearing the rain of bullets outside and being told by a neighbour that the soldiers are shooting at school children, my grandmother told my sister and me to stay in the bedroom and not leave the house and went to the UNRWA school to protect the children. At home, hearing the gun shots, the screams, the sounds of clashes outside, my sister and I took refuge under the bed and I only left it when I heard a big bang in the house and went to look what had happened; a gas bomb had crashed into the house through the bathroom window and had filled the whole house with suffocating gas. I ran to the kitchen looking for the onions as we were taught to do in such cases. I clearly remember how when I saw that gas canister whirling in the house with its cloud of poisonous gas I was fixed in my place first, looking at it and watching it whirl before kicking it back into the bathroom. That day, my father came to take us back home before the situation worsened and a curfew was imposed. On the way to the car, there was another sight I will never forget: that of the main Jerusalem Hebron road running along Dheisheh filled with Israeli soldiers armed from head to toe and shooting everywhere and at everyone. As we ran towards the car, I kept looking at my father fearing he might get hit by one of the thousand bullets flying around us. That day I got to know the Israeli occupation and its brutality, and what it means to be a Palestinian oppressed by Zionist soldiers who know no mercy; I was a child and no one told me lies and propaganda or taught me to hate as the Zionists keep claiming. It was the reality of our life, it was what we encountered daily, it was the Israeli crimes committed on a daily basis against an unarmed occupied people that opened our eyes to what occupation and Zionism are. That day, the “Land Day”, a Palestinian child from Dheisheh was killed by the IOF. I don’t remember his name, I was only a child, but I remember the shooting, the gas and Israeli occupation soldiers everywhere waging a war against unarmed Palestinians.

Growing up, the land was always part of my upbringing and the upbringing of every Palestinian. We didn’t go to Paris or London for the summer vacation, like some “PA” families do these days. The only places for us were Sawahreh, Jerusalem and Dheisheh. Other “holiday destinations” were Hebron and Nablus, but only to visit my uncles in Israeli prisons there. When in the 1980’s the Israeli occupation army surrounded Dheisheh refugee camp with a barbed wire and Zinc plates, it caused somewhat of a sensation. Dheisheh was practically transformed into an open air prison. All entrances to the refugee camp were closed with cement and barrels and the main entrance had a revolving door which the residents called “Ma’atta Il Jaj” i.e. chicken plucker. And in that big prison the Israeli army patrolled the streets and the alleys. It was a prison as we know prisons from TV or from real life. Every half an hour or an hour, depending on the general political situation, a patrol of sometimes 6 sometimes up to 12 Israeli soldiers would pass our street. During the day, we children would just stop playing and watch as they pass, and in the night we would lie in bed and count as they pass: 1, 2, 3, 4… till the last soldier had left our street. while studying in Germany, it happened a couple of times that at night I would wake up to the sound of a group of people running up or down the staircase in my building, and would automatically start counting; 1,2,3… before realizing where I was and that these weren’t Israeli soldiers. We would be sitting in the living room watching cartoons, and they would be sitting on our roof or on the roof of the neighbours pointing their guns towards us. And when they leave the roof, they would leave a dump site behind them, would even use the water tanks as their WC knowing that the refugee camp often suffered from water shortages. But this was nothing compared to their arrest raids, when they would beat everyone and turn everything upside down. And to escape that “prison”, we used to run to Artas, Nahaleen and Al-Khader. No one I know in Dheisheh ever said I am from Dheisheh. They all had homes and want to return to these homes. Dheisheh is a temporary stop, a forced stop until total liberation and the return to Jrash, Deiraban, Zakariya, Al-Malha and all the other towns and villages. These villages are not erased, for they exist in our hearts and on our maps. So, you would be sitting in the prison called Dheisheh and would hear stories about places that seem far away but are closer than you would think. You would hear about the valleys, the hills and the beautiful houses, about the apple and the almond tree in the backyard, about the wheat fields dancing under the sun, about the water spring singing to the butterflies. And you would lean forward and smell the fresh-baked bread and the Jasmines on the windowsill and you would stretch your hand to pick an apple or touch the sea of wheat or splash the running water. For it is all there, waiting for those who were once forced out of their homes to come back and rebuild the homes, plant the apple and almond trees, bake bread and sing under the olive trees.

And when in Sawahreh, we used to spend the time on the land. The land was our home, out haven and our playground. The fields and the prairies, the hilltops and the valleys were our home, the home we were born to, the home to which we always return, the home we loved and which loved us back. The olive and almond fields were our haven, we would sit beneath them and think of life, cry our pain in silence, celebrate our joy, and plan for the future. The hills of Jerusalem were our playground; we would follow the shepherds and their goats, race to the strange round stone structures that spread everywhere. We would climb the trees in search of bird nests and sneak into the caves in search of snake nests. We would see who was fastest to slide down a hill without getting bruised and who would fastest to climb up the hill without sliding back to the base. The fields were our playground; we would play hide and seek amongst the olive trees, and play house and school under the almond trees, and we would take an afternoon swim in the sea of wheat. We would make a swing under the cypress trees and see who would fly the highest, and we would sit under the fig trees and enjoy its fruits while telling folktales. We would search the caves and the hilltops, the pathways and the fields for traces of the folktales we heard from grandmother. We would wake up early in the morning to see the sun rise, hear the birds and smell the fresh air. We would sit up late outside, not talking but listening to the land talk to us. In the springs we loved the sight of the blossoming almond trees and the thousands of poppies that made a beautiful carpet of the land. In the summers we loved the sight of the golden wheat fields and loved the smell of burned wheat. In the autumns we loved to join the harvest and looked forward to the first rainfall. In the winters we loved to run in the olive fields under the rain and wait for the rainbows to decorate the Jerusalem sky. We were the rulers over the lands and the land was our kingdom. And when I came back from Germany, I wanted to see it all again, live it all again.  And when I stood on top of the hill and looked around me I saw the land that was once was not there, instead the Zionist colonies have spread from one side to the other, engulfing the land and blocking the sunrise and the rainbows. Instead, there stood a “container checkpoint” as the people call it, dividing the area into two and standing between me and the prairies of my childhood and youth. Instead, there stood a wall imprisoning Jerusalem, besieging the city and strangling it. Instead, there were IOF military camps on the hilltops, killing the birds in the sky and the poppies on the ground. And I saw Jerusalem empty and sad and I saw Al-Aqsa a prisoner in its own home. Today, there are prisons everywhere in occupied Palestine. You travel from Jerusalem to the south, passing the villages of Bethlehem and Hebron and would only encounter one concentration camp after the other; everywhere the land is surrounded by barbed wire and there is a sign big enough for everyone to see: No access allowed. Refugee camps and some villages are even surrounded by barbed wire as Dheisheh once was. All the way, the same view would be repeated; armed Zionist colonists roaming the roads of Palestine and waving their machine guns. Bus stops with children of the Zionist colonists laughing and playing, protected by Israeli soldiers or Zionists colonists, while Palestinian children going to school or returning from school have to walk all the way to their villages passing these bus stops and wondering if they will be harassed or even killed by these Zionist usurpers. I remember travelling several times from Bethlehem to Hebron, watching one Zionist colony after the other, one barbed and “closed” area after the other. I remember thinking: all that has remained for us are a few ghettos here and there. Watching the colonies spreading like cancer on the hills of Palestine while the so-called leaders of the Palestinian people beg the Israelis for a water well or an extra millimetre in Ramallah, I thought of the Nakba and of the land.

Do you Remember Jrash? Deiraban? Zakariya? Al-Malha? Al-Walaje? Al-Birra? Sirin? Do even know these and all the other places? Have you even heard of them?

Palestine is not only Ramallah and Bethlehem, Nilin and Bilin. Palestine is the sea breeze in Akka, the sunrise in Al-Majdal, the green meadows in Al-Jaleel, the romantic desert of An-Naqab. Palestine is the arches of Jerusalem, it is the mountains of Jericho, it is the grapevines of Hebron, it is the hilltops of Nablus, it is the sea waves of Gaza. It is the 531 Palestinian villages and towns depopulated and destroyed by the Zionists during the Nakba. Palestine is the villages and towns that are there in our memory, it is the ancient mosque and the beautiful church that still stand witness to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, it is the olive and almond trees that stand witness to the Palestinians who worked this land, it is the graves that stand witness to the generations that lived in this land and died in it, it is the stones scattered where once beautiful homes decorated the area and stand witness to a history that refuses to be erased. Palestine is Haifa, Yaffa, Al-Jalil and all of Jerusalem, it is Ras Il-Naqoura and Im Il-Rashrash, it is the land between the River and the Sea. And because Palestine is all of this, we celebrate it all, every part of it, and we will defend every part of it and this land will always be part of us and we are part of it.

The Zionist entity is built on the theft of Palestinian land, and the infamous Zionist quote “A Land without a people for a people without a land” has been used to usurp Palestine and to ethnically cleanse it of its indigenous people. But Palestine was never empty and its lands have an owner: the Palestinians who loved their land and cared for it (see And then they came and turned our paradise into a desert). And despite the many waves of Zionist colonists coming to usurp Palestine, Palestinians remained the majority in Palestine till the eve of the Nakba: of the 2,156,700 people living in Palestine, 1,693,700 were indigenous Muslim, Christian and Jewish Palestinians, making 79% of the total population. Zionists tried owning Palestinian land by ways of trickery, theft and some bought lands from non-Palestinians because of the Ottoman Land Codes which allowed Palestinian lands to pass into the hands of foreigners who didn’t even live in Palestine and later sold the land to Zionists. But despite all Zionist efforts to control Palestinian land, until the eve of the Nakba Palestinians owned 87.5% of the total area of Palestine, while Jews owned only 6.6%, the remaining 5.9% were classified as “state land” by the British mandate government. During the Nakba, Palestinian villages were ethnically cleansed and destroyed, erased to forge history and hide the fact they ever existed. The goal was always the land, Zionists knew and know that without stealing Palestinian land their entity is meaningless. And so, the theft of Palestinian land continued after the Nakba and plans were being prepared for the theft of the rest of Palestine, i.e. East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. And while the Zionists were crying “Nazis” and “Holocaust” and refusing to “forgive” Germany, they were cashing money from Europe and others openly and from Germany in secret, and their planners were implementing the Nazi regional planning policies in occupied Palestine.

The “Judaization” of Palestine is a Zionist state policy aiming at ethnically cleansing all of Palestine, preventing the return of the millions of Palestinian refugees, forcing the rest of Palestinians out of Palestine and having control over all Palestinian land. The process of “Judaizing” Palestine began long before the Nakba. As early as 1882 and maybe earlier European Zionists were preparing regional plans for Palestinian cities they wanted to occupy and “Judaize”. This policy culminated during the Nakba, when around 80% of the Palestinian population was forced out of their homes, towns and villages by Zionist terror militias and made refugees. Around 531 Palestinian villages and towns (85% of all Palestinian villages and towns) were ethnically cleansed of their residents, destroyed and many completely erased off the face of the earth. In their place Zionist colonies were built and the lands belonging to these villages were confiscated to build more Zionist colonies and parks. Some 25 laws, including ancient Ottoman and British mandate laws and newly drafted Zionist laws such as the “Land Acquisition Law” of 1953 and the “Absentees’ Property Law” of 1950, were used to confiscate Palestinian land and declare it state land. The aim was: stealing land and property of Palestinian refugees and others who although live in occupied Palestine were considered absentees and increase Jewish presence in Palestinian areas to prevent Palestinian majority points in “Israel”. Land belonging to Palestinian living in occupied Palestine was confiscate with excuses such as “security” or “settlement activities” and Palestinian access to these lands was prohibited. While restrictions are placed on Palestinian building and land ownership, Jews from all over the world have the right to the land of the Palestinians.

The “Judaizaion” of the Galilee was always one of the main projects of the Zionist entity. “In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6, 1948 Ben Gurion said: We will not be able to win this war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area … I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of [Palestinian] Arab population.” And prior to the Operation Hiram in October 1948, the Israeli Foreign ministry advised its terrorist army “to try during the conquest [to make sure] that no [Palestinian] Arabs inhabitants remain in the Galilee and certainly that no refugees from other places remain there.”[1] As later with the Zionist colonization in the West Bank and the “Judaization” of Jerusalem, the “Judaization” of the Galilee was encouraged by government incentives such as tax exemptions, land and housing subsidiaries and loans. Regional plans for the Galilee were drafted one after the other, all based on: Zionist control over Palestinian land, Jewish majority in mixed areas, and explicitly calling for the disruption of Palestinian geographic contiguity there through building more Zionist colonies. Despite all Zionist efforts to “Judaize” Palestine, Al-Jalil (Galilee) remained predominantly Palestinian. In spring 1976, Yisrael Koenig, who was the Northern District Commissioner of the Israeli Ministry of Interior for 26 years, prepared a secret internal government document known as the “Koenig Memorandum”, which was published in full in Autumn 1976 by an Israeli newspaper. In its first and main section entitled “The Demographic Problem and the Manifestation of Arab Nationalism” Koenig “warns” of a “demographic threat” posed by the increasing Arab population in Galilee  and calls openly for its “Judaization” through reducing the number of Palestinians living there. Among other things, the Memorandum calls for land expropriation, building new Zionist colonies amongst Arab communities to fragment the Arab population and isolate it. It also calls for limiting funds for Arab communities in general and to Arab families in particular and infesting them with taxes thus creating financial pressures so these families have no time to think about politics and involvement in it. Koenig recommends scholarship programmes for Arabs to encourage them to study abroad and then make it difficult for them to return. As for those living in occupied Palestine, Koenig recommends making it difficult for them to find jobs and calls for “creating” weak and compliant Arabs to lead the Palestinians communities. The Koenig Memorandum played a vital role in the events ensuing the Land Day and Zionist governments implemented the Koenig memorandum and continue to follow its recommendations till today.

Early 1975 yet another Israeli governmental plan was introduced to “Judaize” the Galilee under the name of “Galilee Develop Plan”. As with all land regulation plans, it’s aim was to create a Jewish majority in the Galilee and a new population distribution through Zionist colonization. 50 Zionist colonies called the Mitzpim (lookouts) were to be established in the Galilee amongst Palestinian communities. To do this, on 29.02.1976 Israel confiscated 21,000 Dunums of lands belonging to the Palestinian towns Sakhneen, Arraba, Deir Hanna and Arab Assawa’id. A huge popular conference took place in Nazareth on 18.10.1975, the first since the Nakba to be organized by Palestinians inside Palestinian areas occupied in 1948. And after further meetings it was decided that a general strike and marches would take place on 30.03 in protest of land confiscation. The “Land Day” was thus born and it was significant because it was first time since 1948 that Palestinians as one organ organize a wide scale political action against the Zionist entity. Previous protests and actions had been limited and scattered. Since then this day is marked by Palestinians everywhere. The Israeli answer to the declared strike started on the eve of the “Land Day”, when Rabin, Israeli prime minister at the time and Peres, defence minister at the time sent thousands of occupation soldiers and police forces to the Palestinian villages and towns to break up the planned strike and quench any peaceful marches and protests. Palestinians were beaten and arrested, shops and windows destroyed and curfews were imposed. The first martyr, Khair Mohammad Yasin (23 yrs old), fell on the eve of “Land Day” after being shot and then prevented by Israeli army tanks from reaching hospital until he bled to death. On the 30^th of March 1976, and despite Israeli threats, the curfews and the huge presence of the IOF, the general strike was strictly observed all over the Palestinian towns and villages in protest of the Israeli measures to steal more Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse Palestine of what is left of its indigenous people. Shops and businesses were closed, and thousands joined the protest marches. Israeli tanks and helicopters were everywhere and when the Israeli army tried breaking up the strike by force using live ammunition, clashes erupted leading to the death of a further 5 Palestinians. Tens were injured and hundreds arrested. In Sakhneen Khadija Qasem Shawahneh (23 yrs old), Raja Hussein Abu Rayya (30 yrs old) and Khader Eid Mahmoud Khalaila (24 yrs old) were killed, 50 were injured and 70 were arrested. In Kufr Kanna Muhsin Hasan Said Taha (15 yrs old) was killed, women and children were beaten by the Israeli police and many were arrested. In Taybeh Ra’fat Ali Az-Zheiri (21 yrs old) from Nur Shams refugee camp was killed. Many were injured in clashes throughout Palestine, others arrested and some even had their arms and legs broken by the IOF after being arrested. Many of those who joined the strike and the protests later lost their jobs. The story of Khader Khalaila is typical of how the Zionists shoot to kill and when the victim doesn’t die they prevent help to ensure death. Ahmed Khalaila recalled that “when a neighbor stepped outside her house, she was shot and injured…. He and his older brother, Khader, tried to help the woman. When they were about 50 metres from her, Khader was shot in the head. “He was still breathing and we hoped he could be saved, but there were checkpoints at all the entrances to the village. We knew no ambulance would be coming for him.” Eventually the family managed to get him into a car and drove towards the nearest hospital. Held at a checkpoint, Mr Khalaila said, the family watched as Khader bled to death as he lay across his younger brother’s legs on the back seat. Khader was 24 and recently married.  No one ever came to investigate what had happened, or offered the family compensation. “It was as if a bird had died,” he said. “No one was interested; no questions were asked in the parliament. Nothing.”[2] The Palestinians in the Palestinian Territories occupied in 1967 responded to the revolt of their brothers and sisters by joining. They too went out to the streets to protest the theft of their land and the “Judaization” of Jerusalem. They went out to protest living in refugee camps while their homes and lands are given to Zionist colonists. Demonstrations spread like fire uniting Jerusalem, Al-Jalil, Nablus, the Muthallath, Gaza, Akka, Hebron, Nazareth, Ramallah, Al-Naqab and all of Palestine. Later that day, the protests spread to Palestinian refugee camps in the Diaspora. The land had united Palestinians everywhere, and it continues to do that till today. The “Judaization” of the Galilee continued to be a main Zionist plan. In 1977, Sharon, agricultural minister at the time, created a council for the Mitzpim which came to be known as the Misgav Regional Council: Galilee land fell under the control of the Misgav and Palestinian communities there were surrounded by more Zionist colonies which limited their growth and isolated them.

Today, the “Judaization” of occupied Palestine continues through ethnic cleansing, land expropriation and colonization. This has intensified particularly in the heart of Palestine: Jerusalem. After the 1967 war, municipal boundaries of Jerusalem were changed to include land belonging to Bethlehem and Ramallah. Today, the holy city is witnessing a frenzied campaign of “Judaization” and house demolition, forced evictions, colonization and land confiscation have become daily. The path of the Zionist wall engulfs more Palestinian land and confines Palestinians to tiny Ghettos. The international community and the Arab world watch and do nothing other than the casual “shy condemnation”. They are partners in the Zionist crime not only through their silence while Israel continues to kick Palestinians out of their homes but through their support of a 2-state solution which is nothing but a formula for a one racist Zionist entity enslaving Palestinians and holding them prisoners in tiny ghettos. It is the land that brings Palestinians together and the confiscation, the on-going ethnic cleansing and the “Judaization” bring more Palestinians and international anti-Zionist activists together such as witnessed today in occupied Jerusalem. Since that first “Land Day” Palestinians in all of occupied Palestine, those in the Diaspora and Palestine supporters worldwide have commemorated this day through demonstrations, marches and various solidarity actions. For the Palestinians in occupied Palestine, every day is a “Land Day”; they defend their land daily against the IOF and the Zionist colonists, they work the land despite Zionist threats for the land is theirs and many have fallen while defending the land. During the British Mandate, Palestinians refused to keep silent as the British government gave their land to the Zionist colonists. Many Palestinians were labelled “terrorists” for defending their lands and many fell while defending these lands, while the usurper and the killer was protected and labelled the “victim”; not much different from today. During the Nakba Palestinians protected their lands and fought the Zionists terror militias to the last breathe and to the last bullet and as they were forced out of their homes they saw these homes being made to the ground and saw their towns and villages being erased. And they, who had homes, lands and lives became refugees yearning for Palestine. Palestinians who remained steadfast in Palestine saw the Zionist entity take the lands of their brothers and sisters who were made refugees and give it to immigrants from Europe and elsewhere. They saw how the Zionist entity was taking their land to build more illegal colonies while prohibiting them from building a shack. Palestinians have homes, they have lands, they have but one homeland: Palestine. No Palestinian wants to live as a stranger in his own homeland. No Palestinian wants to see a Zionist colonist from Germany, Russia, the US or Canada take her/his land or the land of another Palestinian. No Palestinian wants to live in a refugee camp when she/he has a home and a land. The “Land Day” is day of protest, a day of remembrance and a day of resistance. It sends a message to the Zionist entity and its supporters, to the Arab regimes and to the collaborating so-called PA: No Palestinian will ever give up her/his right to Palestine or the right to return. For it is a day to declare that we are the land, that we will hold on to the land, remain attached to the land and be part of the land. It is a day to shout out loud so the whole world and those claiming to represent us hear us: We will never give up our legitimate rights, we will never give up our right to defend our land and our right to return.

Our roots are in this land and we can’t live elsewhere. The Zionists wish us to disappear, want us to disappear, they want the earth to swallow us and that we no longer exist and threaten their Zionist dream. Without a land, there is no existence and Israel tries to destroy the existence of the Palestinian people. But despite the brutality with which Israel faces unarmed Palestinians protecting their land, and despite all its efforts to erase the Palestinian national identity and crush Palestinian political aspirations, Palestinians rise up again and again for their land, their homeland. Every revolt, every Intifada and even the smallest demonstration is a fight for the land. Palestinians have a deep connection with the land, they are part of it, and no power can break that connection. Our blood is mixed with this land, so how can anyone expect us to betray our blood? Yes, we Palestinians are tired of the death and the suffering, yes we yearn for a normal life, a peaceful life. But it is not any “life” or any “peace” that we will accept: we will never accept to live like animals in Ghettos in our own land, because life without dignity is no life, peace without justice is no peace. The Palestinian spirit which the Zionist entity did its best to subdue and kill is never dead and will never die. Again and again, it rises up and revolts as one and is more alive with every revolt. Intifadas are never planned, nor are they controllable. They are the reaction of a people that yearn for freedom and want to break off the chains of slavery and oppression. Israel never expected the first Intifada in the 1980s, thought us too weak and too subdued to rise up against its tyranny and brutality. And the Intifada broke out like a volcanic eruption. Israel and the so-called PA didn’t except nor want a second Intifada in 2000, thought us too weak and too subdued to rise up against their tyranny, brutality and corruption. And the second Intifada broke out like a tornado. And today Israel and the so-called PA don’t want a third Intifada, they think us too weak and too subdued to rise up against their tyranny, brutality, corruption, collaboration and their joined efforts to destroy Palestine and Palestinian rights and national identity. But the third Intifada will come, and it will come like an earthquake: stronger than a volcanic eruption and a tornado put together for we have had enough from both the occupiers and collaborators. The struggle for the land was and will always be the driving force of the Palestinian people, and the revolution of the land will only take place when all the land revolts.

-

“Land Day” Martyrs (partial/initial list @ http://poppiesofpalestine.wordpress.com)

30.03.1976

1 Kheir Mohammad Salim Yasin (23 yrs old) from Arraba, shot dead by the IOF

2 Khadija Qasem Shawahneh (23 yrs old) from Sakhneen, shot dead by the IOF

3 Raja Hussein Abu Rayya (30 yrs old) from Sakhneen, shot dead by the IOF

4 Khader Eid Mahmoud Khalaila (24 yrs old) from Sakhneen, shot dead by the IOF

5 Muhsin Hasan Said Taha (15 yrs old) from Kufr Kanna, shot dead by the IOF

6 Ra’fat Ali Az-Zheiri (21 yrs old) from Nur Shams refugee camp and was shot dead by the IOF in Al-Taybeh

-

30.03.1988

1 Sliman Ahmad Al-Jundi (17 yrs old), from Yatta, Hebron, shot dead by the IOF

2 Mohammad Faris Az-Zein (17 yrs old), from Al-Yamoun, Jenin, shot dead by the IOF

3 Husni Mohammad Shahin (22 yrs old), from Al-Yamoun, Jenin, shot dead by the IOF

4 Mohammad ‘Arif Qasim Salah (22 yrs old), from Burqa, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

5 Khalid Mohammad Salah (23 yrs old), from Burqa, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

6 Wajiha Yousif Rabi’ (50 yrs old), from Deir Abu Mish’al, Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF

7 Abdil-Karim Mohammad Musa Al-Halayqah (25 yrs old), from Ash-Shayyukh, Hebron, shot dead by the IOF

8 Shakir Mohammad Ali Malsiyeh (20 yrs old), from Deir Bzeigh, Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF

9 Mousa ‘Azmi (30 yrs old), from Zita, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF

10 Iyad ‘Azmi (21 yrs old), from Zita, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF

11 Ma’rouf Mahmoud Nu’man (27 yrs old), from Zita, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2000

1 Sheikha Yousif Abu Salih (72 yrs old), from Sakhneen, suffocated by gas fired by the IOF

-

30.03.2001

1 Ayish Ghazi ‘Mustafa Zamil (19 yrs old), from Deir Al-Hatab, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

2 Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Maraheel (16 yrs old), from Balata RC, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

3 Sufian Sa’eed Abdel Rahman Saloum (31 yrs old), from Balata RC, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

4 Murad Salih Ahmad Sharay’ah (21 yrs old), from Balata RC, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

5 Khalid Shihadeh Deeb Al-Nahleh (27 yrs old), from Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

6 Mohammad Abdel Muhsin Khalid Al-Wawi (20 yrs old), from Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2002

1 Ahmad Fathi Mahmoud ‘Ajaj (23 yrs old), from Seda, Tulkarim, killed by IOF missile

2 Azmi ‘Adel Mahmoud ‘Ajaj (21 yrs old), from Seda, Tulkarim, killed by IOF missile

3 Ahmad Abdel Jawad (22 yrs old), from Nablus, killed by an explosion

4 Isma’il Ibrahim Deeb Isa (56 yrs old), from Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF

5 Hussein Husni Hussein Al-Ashqar (27 yrs old), from Qalqilia, shot dead by the IOF

6 Fathi Jihad Fathi ‘Amerah (18 yrs old), from Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

7 Majdi Abdel Jawad Abdel Jabbar Khanfar (21 yrs old), from Silet Ath-Thahir, Jenin, shot dead by the IOF

8 Muhannad Ibrahim Fayyad Salahat (16 yrs old), from Bethlehem, shot dead by the IOF

9 Nuha Ziyad Ahmad Ikte’ (8 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

10 Khalid Fathi Mohammad ‘Awad Allah (32 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

11 Sa’id Abdel Rahman Mohammad Mahdi (60 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

12 Omar Musa Mohammad Diab (54 yrs old), from Jericho, killed by IOF missile

13 Ahmad Kallab (61 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

14 Shahir Abu Shara (33 yrs old), from Ramallah, shot dead by the IOF

15 Abdel Rahman Tawfiq Abdallah Is’id (58 yrs old), from Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2003

1 Mahmoud Ali An-Najjar (18 yrs old), from Jabalia, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

2 Rami Jamil Mutlaq Ghanim (20 yrs old), from Deir Al-Ghusoun, Tulkarim, shot dead by the IOF

3 Mahmoud Mohammad Rashid Al-Mashharawi (22 yrs old), from Ash-Shaja’iyyah, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

4 Mohammad Farouq Tafish (16 yrs old), from Jabalia, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2004

1 Fatima Mohammad Shreiqi Al-Jallad (7 yrs old), from Khan Younis, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2005

1 Mu’tasim Al-Aqea’ from Qablan, Nablus, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2006

1Ahmad Mahmoud Ahmad Masharqa (23 years old), from Hebron, shot dead by the IOF

-

30.03.2007

1 Kamil Kamal Kamil Mousa (21 years old), from Al-Maghazi, Gaza, shot dead by the IOF

-

---

[1] www.palestineremembered.com

[2] http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090330/FOREIGN/382507494

-

© http://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com

-