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Roundup: Palestinians demonstrate in Gaza, West Bank to mark 40th Land Day

Xinhua, March 31, 2016 Adjust font size:

Palestinians marked on Wednesday 40th anniversary of the Land Day with demonstrations, protests and rallies across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses told Xinhua that Israeli security forces dispersed with tear gas a demonstration in the northern West Bank city of Jenin. The demonstrators were on their way to plant trees in the suburbs of the city to mark the day.

Dozens of Palestinians held rallies in several West Bank towns and cities, waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans calling for an end to the Israeli occupation and called for establishing the independent Palestinian state.

Also dozens of Palestinians demonstrated near the borders between northern Gaza Strip and Israel. They called for unity and an end to an internal Palestinian split that has been going on since 2007.

The demonstrators called on the Palestinians to keep their steadfastness on their occupied lands. Others chanted in support for armed struggle against Israel.

Other protesters planted olive trees close to the borders with Israel as a message that the Palestinian people are sticking to their land.

In late March 1976, six Palestinians were killed in massive demonstrations in northern and southern Israel in protest to the Israeli confiscation of large areas of lands owned by Palestinians living in northern and southern Israel.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) considered March 30 of every year a day of protests and rage against the Israeli confiscation of Palestinian lands. The PLO called the day The Land Day.

Zakareya el-Agha, the Gaza member of the PLO executive committee, told the rally that the Palestinians should keep sticking to their land and also called for popular protests against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

The rally in Gaza was attended by several leaders of various Islamic and PLO factions, including Islamic Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad.

Ahmad Bahar, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, who called for unity, told the rally that the Palestinians are staying on their lands and "the Israeli occupation won't be able to uproot them or kick them out."

Khaled al-Batsh, a senior leader of the Islamic Jihad, also told the rally that the Palestinian conflict with the Israeli occupation "is based on both national and religious principles, and we are certain that our land will never be divided."

In Gaza city, several Palestinian artists and painters draw the largest and longest wall graffiti. The drawing is 2300 meters and the artists are planning to put it into Guinness Book of Records.

The graffiti, a product of around 300 male and female artists, was symbolic explaining the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation, the Land Day and the Palestinians aspirations for liberation and independence.

According to a statement issued by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel controls more than 85 percent of the land of Historic Palestine which is 27,000 square km.

The statement accused Israel of acting against the Palestinians by destroying and demolishing their homes and confiscating their lands, adding that in 2015 only, Israel approved the building of 12,600 houses in just east Jerusalem. Endit