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<font size="1"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/celebrating-land-day-lockdown-palestine-200329162501923.html">https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/celebrating-land-day-lockdown-palestine-200329162501923.html</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Commemorating Land Day amid lockdown in Palestine</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Yara Hawari - March 30, 2020<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-line-height4 gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div id="gmail-body-201172416000000001"><p><span lang="EN-US">Forty-four
years ago today, the Israeli police shot six Palestinian citizens of
Israel dead as they were protesting against the Israeli government's
expropriation of thousands of acres of Palestinian land in the Galilee.
Since then, March 30 has been known as Land Day and is an important date
in the Palestinian political calendar. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">This year, Palestinians will be marking Land Day
at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left much of the world's
populations under lockdown and curfew. </span><span lang="EN-US">Being confined to their homes or their villages and towns is</span><span> not a new experience for Palestinians which is perhaps why so many have taken it in their stride.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Indeed, Palestinians in the West Bank are confined
to what amounts to bantustans connected to each other only by roads
controlled by the Israeli regime, while their brothers and sisters in
Gaza live in an open-air prison deemed "unliveable" by the United
Nations. Most Palestinians living across the "Green Line" have Israeli
citizenship, they nevertheless live in urban and rural ghettos.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Palestinians are also disconnected from their Arab
brothers and sisters with many of them prevented from travelling around
the Arab world, either because their documents do not permit them to do
so (in the case of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) or because
they are under travel bans.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">As part of the COVID-19 response, the Israeli
regime has imposed even more measures restricting Palestinian movement.
The city of Bethlehem has been put under lockdown, while crossings into
Gaza and the West Bank have been shut down. Palestinian
labourers working in Israel have also been told to either stay for an
unknown period of time in shoddy and unsanitary accommodation or give up
work and stay in the West Bank. </span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">The Palestinian Authority has imposed a curfew and
set up checkpoints between villages and towns to limit the movement of
people. Businesses have been shut down, except for supermarkets and
pharmacies. </span></p>
<p>Meanwhile, Israel is continuing its practices of removing
Palestinians from their land, even exploiting the lockdown amid the
pandemic to do so. In Jerusalem, where there is a concerted effort to
Judaise neighbourhoods and reduce the number of Palestinian inhabitants,
the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/long-reads/coronavirus-israel-palestine-police-raid-middle-east-cases-pandemic-a9430216.html" target="_blank">demolitions</a>
of Palestinian homes continue, despite the outbreak. The Israeli regime
claims these buildings are illegal in order to justify demolishing
them, yet Palestinians are consistently denied building permits.</p>
<p>Demolitions are also used as a method of collective punishment of the
families of Palestinian political prisoners particularly in the West
Bank. In the midst of this pandemic, this continuing cruel practice
renders calls by Israeli authorities to "stay at home" absurd.</p>
<p>Similarly the construction of illegal settlements across the West
Bank has not halted and there are fears that de jure annexation of many
areas will be expediated under these circumstances, particularly as
Benjamin Netanyahu is once again set to lead the next government.</p>
<p>Already, last week there were <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-palestine-israel-settlers-exploit-lockdown-annex-land" target="_blank">three cases</a>
in which illegal Israeli settlements razed Palestinian land and there
has been an overall rise in attacks against Palestinian properties.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, Palestinians from Beita village near Nablus held a
sit-in to try and protect land from being stolen by settlers. The
Israeli security forces came out in full force to give cover to the
settlers and in the process shot 15-year-old Mohammed Hammayel in the
head killing him instantly.</p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Many in historic Palestine are worried that Israel
will use the COVID-19 outbreak as an excuse to leave in place new
restrictive measures even after the pandemic is over and will also
prevent Palestinians from resisting its land grabs. At a time when the
world is focused solely on the pandemic and the Israeli regime has the
full support of the US administration to do as it pleases, Israeli
aggressive expansionism seems inevitable.</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-US">Yet over the decades, Palestinians have shown
incredible strength, courage and sumud (steadfastness) in the face of
great adversity. While Israeli settler colonial expansionism does not
rest, neither does Palestinian perseverance. As the Palestinian poet
Tawfiq Ziyad wrote:</span></p>
<p><span>In Lidda, in Ramla, in the Galilee,<br> we shall remain<br> like a wall upon your chest,<br> and in your throat<br> like a shard of glass,<br> a cactus thorn,<br> and in your eyes<br> a sandstorm.<br> </span></p>
<p><strong><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><em><br></em></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></strong></p></div></div></div>
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