In a collective response on March 30, 1976 - marking one of the first displays of mass coordinated action by Palestinians inside Israel - Palestinians demonstrated from across Galilee in the north all the way to the Negev in the south. Six Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces and more than 100 were injured.
March 30 has since been commemorated annually by Palestinians as Yom al-Ard (Land Day), with collective anti-colonisation actions across historic Palestine and in the Palestinian diaspora.
Its commemoration is a reaffirmation that the Palestinians who remained in the areas on which Israel was declared in 1948 are an inseparable part of the Palestinian people and their struggle. Land Day continues to resonate with Palestinians and human rifghts activsists everywhere because it does not just mark a past historical event, but draws attention to Israel’s ongoing violent, settler-colonial process of “Judaization.”
