CAIRO, March 27, 2011 (WAFA)- The Arab League, Sunday (in the thirty fifth anniversary of Land Day)demanded the international community, especially the United Nations, the Security Council , the Quartet and the international organizations to pressure Israel in order to end its military occupation and settlement activities on the occupied Palestinian Territory.
In addition, it demanded halting the Israeli practices which destroy peace efforts, the Israeli imposition of facts on the ground and the Israeli obstacles to the establishment of a sovereign and an independent Palestinian state.
The League said that the Israeli policy of seizing Palestinian land; of those who have been displaced inside Israel and deprived from returning to their land, is the Israeli successive governments’ adopted approach.
It also said that Israel continued its settlement activities increasingly; in the establishment of new settlements and in the expansion of existing settlements, as an attempt to legitimize such activities, which are a flagrant violation of all the international legitimacy’s resolutions and principals.
The Palestine and Occupied Arab Territories Sector’s statement pointed out that the main reason behind the Land Day Upraise, was the Israeli authorities seizure of 21 thousand donum of lands from (1 donum = 1000 square meters) Arraba, Sakhnin, in eastern Acre, in the lower Galilee, Deir Hanna, in the southeast of Acre, and Hula Valley, in order to be allocated to the Jewish settlements in the context of Judaizing the Galilee.
It explained that the Israeli authorities since 1948 destroyed about 418 Arab villages’ houses, mosques, churches and historical landmarks completely, prevented people from returning to their land; 300 thousand of the destroyed villages’ population remained refugees within the occupied land of 1948. Moreover, the Israeli authorities seized during 1948-1972 more than one million donum of Galilee and al-Muthallath (Triangle area) Arab villages.
Land Day, March 30, is an annual day of commemoration for Palestinians of that day’s events occurred in 1976. A general strike and marches were organized in Arab towns from the Galilee to the Naqab (Negev). In response to the Israeli government's announcement of a plan to seize thousands donums of land for ‘security and settlement purposes’, confrontations with the Israeli army and police took place; six Arab citizens were killed, about one hundred were wounded, and hundreds of others were arrested. The Israeli government’s decision was imposed on the villages of Sakhnin, Arraba, Deir Hanna, Tur'an, near the main road from Haifa to Tiberius, Tamra, northern Shefa-‘Amr city, and Kabul, southeast of Acre, and north Shefa-‘Amr in1976.
Y.Y./F.R.
