Land Day (1976)

Tue Mar 30, 1976

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Image: Land Day, 1978 (Photo: Gidon Gitai)

On this day in 1976, Palestinians initiated a campaign of resistance, including a general strike, occupations, and violent confrontation with police, in opposition to Israeli settlement plans. The uprising is commemorated annually as Land Day.

Land Day was not a spontaneous uprising, but the result of months of planning. On May 21st, 1975, activists and Arab intellectuals held a meeting in Haifa to discuss a strategic response to Israel stepping up its campaign to appropriate Palestinian-owned land. This began a series of meetings over which the campaign was conceptualized, including a general congress that was the largest public gathering of Palestinians in Israel since 1948.

On February 14th, 1976, more than 5,000 residents rallied in the village of Sakhnin, calling for a general strike in response to Israeli repression. To prepare for the strike, local land defense committees and branches of the Communist Party distributed leaflets, organized demonstrations, and held meetings in several Arab towns and villages.

The first confrontations began on the eve of Land Day, March 29th as demonstrators in Arraba demanded the release of a local activist, closing the streets and setting fire to tires. Israeli soldiers fired on demonstrators with live ammunition, injuring many of them.

The following day, the general strike was initiated in Arab towns and villages, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and refugee camps in Lebanon. Israeli troops and border guards in military trucks and tanks raided Arab communities to arrest activist politicians and disperse demonstrators.

In total, six people were killed, approximately fifty were injured, and three hundred were arrested. When some of the injured applied for compensation, the Israeli Ministry of Defense categorized the Land Day confrontations as “combat activity”.

The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question describes Land Day’s legacy this way: “Land Day was a turning point in the orientations and tools adopted for Palestinian struggle inside Israel. After Land Day the Palestinians in Israel gradually structured their presence as a national group inside Israel in a way that went beyond their local struggles.”

During Land Day protests in 2018, seventeen Palestinians were killed, including five Hamas members, and more than 1,400 were injured in shootings by the Israeli Army during a march calling for the Palestinian right of return at the borders with Gaza.