"Land Day is a symbolic day for all Palestinians, we consider it a big part to the confrontation of the ongoing Nabka, which refers to all the policies implemented by the Israelis to control the maximum amount of Palestinian lands with the minimum amount of Palestinian residents”, explains Nidal Al Azzeh, coordinator of the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, “Wadi Foukeen is now threaten by Israeli forces hat seek to confiscate more land while forcibly dispersing more people. We chose this area because it is strongly threatened by these Israeli policies”.
Young and old were given a total of 10 minutes, before dozens of tear gas were fired. The Israeli weapons spared nobody, not the nine-year-old boys who coughing were covering their mouth, nor the elderly woman who trips over while rushing descending the stony hill.
“We just wanted to go up and plant trees, and a lot of people joined us and supported this peaceful type of protest. They [Israeli] said that the land wasn’t in use so we tried to plant trees, but they started shooting at us right away and chased us down the hill”, tells a young local resident. “This village is on the border of what is now Israel and this village has already lost 70% of its land. What you see behind the border is a growing Israeli settlement, expanding on the village land. We are trying to preserve whatever is left of it, but this past summer they took almost half of what is remaining of this village. We are suffocating, we are in between a major settlement, we are in between the border where they want to build the Apartheid Wall, there is nothing left. We try to hold on to this land, but we feel like we got nowhere else to go when we are constantly attacked by tear gas in our homes”.
What normally should have lasted two hours was so shortened to ten minutes. Despite this, the Palestinian people do not give up and will gather again on March 30 the next year, with the same solidarity and strength.
Palestinian resistance will continue as long as the occupation colonizing the Palestinian people.