Uphold Palestinian Right of Return! Support Palestinian Resistance!

March 30, 2021. Land Day celebration in Palestine

This year marks the 45th anniversary of Land Day, which commemorates the events of March 30, 1976, when six Palestinians from Arab villages inside the Green Line were shot and killed by Israeli forces while protesting the confiscation of 5,500 acres of land from the Galilee. Since then, Land Day has been commemorated by Palestinians inside Israel as well as in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem and around the world. Such actions were once again held this year despite the limitations imposed by the pandemic.

In Palestine rallies and marches marked Land Day, in particular in the towns where the six martyrs were killed 45 years ago and Palestinians laid wreaths at their graves. Local media report that tens of Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Hebron, Jenin, Salfit, Nilin, Nablus and Sebastia.

Actions in support of Palestine are all the more important at this time when Zionists, aided and abetted by the U.S. imperialists and their allies such as Canada, are escalating their violations of international law and the human rights of the Palestinians as part of an overall program of dispossession and genocide.

Land Day gathering near the Palestine-Lebanon border

On the occasion of Land Day 2021, Dr. Ola Awad, President of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), issued a statement in which she commemorated Land Day in statistical figures. Dr. Awad noted that Israel's continuous confiscation of land from the Palestinians at present amounts to 85 per cent of the total lands of historical Palestine being under Israeli control. She also points out that the expansion of illegal settlements in Palestinian lands are accompanied by a growing number of violent attacks to displace the Palestinians. There were 1,090 such attacks recorded in 2020, up nine per cent from 2019, that include the razing of properties, destruction of thousands of trees, the killing of hundreds of cattle, assaults using vehicles and guns, as well as attempted kidnappings. The settlers carry out these attacks under the protection of the Israeli military.

Dr. Awad points to the occupation's ongoing practice of demolishing Palestinian buildings under various pretexts, noting that "During 2020, the Israeli occupation demolished and destroyed 976 Palestinian buildings; around 30 per cent of which were in Jerusalem Governorate, 296 demolitions, of which 180 buildings were inside the neighbourhoods of Jerusalem. Whereas the self-demolition operations for Palestinian buildings reached 89 operations, most of which were located in Jerusalem Governorate. During the year 2020, the Israeli occupation orders to demolish and stop the construction and restoration of about 1,012 buildings in the West Bank and Jerusalem, an increase of about 45 per cent over 2019. The occupation authorities are also placing obstacles on the issuance of building permits to Palestinians."

Meanwhile, the massive numbers of injuries, detentions and deaths due to the occupation and violent expansion of settlements continues to grow. The PCBS informs that "The number of Palestinian and Arab martyrs killed since the Nakba in 1948 and until [Land Day 2021] (inside and outside Palestine) reached about 100,000 martyrs. Moreover, the number of martyrs killed in the Al-Aqsa Intifada between September 29, 2000 and December 31, 2020 was 10,969. It is said that the bloodiest year was 2014 with 2,240 Palestinian martyrs, 2,181 of them were during the war on the Gaza Strip. During 2020, the number of Palestinian martyrs reached 43, nine of whom were children and three women. While the number of the wounded Palestinians during the year 2020 reached about 1,650. By the end of 2020, there were 4,400 Palestinian detainees in the Israeli occupation prisons, 170 of them are children and 35 women. In regards to the number of detention cases during the year 2020, it amounted to about 4,634 cases, including 543 children and 128 women."

On the occasion of Land Day 2020, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) salutes the Palestinian people and their courage, resourcefulness and steadfast resistance to defend their right to be, and calls on everyone to step up their efforts to stand with Palestine.

Long Live the Just Struggle of the Palestinian People!