Every year, without fail, Palestinians commemorate Land Day on March 30, or Yom al-Ard. The fight is perpetual for a people that battles for the full recognition of its State and its sovereignty. But today is special, because it marks 50 years of this day of vindication, which comes in one of the most complicated contexts in its history, with him and her as a backdrop.
Today, despite the enormous slab of the present 2026, Palestinians remember the events of 50 years ago, when on March 30, 1976, six completely unarmed citizens were killed by Israeli forces and more than 100 were injured during protests against the confiscation of Palestinian lands by Israel.
Tel Aviv, specifically, wanted to keep 2,100 hectares (or 21,000 dunums, if we use the request for the area) of land belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel, in the Galilee region (in the northeast). These plans were part of the Israeli state policy of Judaizing the territory, after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Although the land confiscations affected the entire Galilee, the epicenter of the protests of that year 76 was located in the Palestinian cities of Sakhnin, Arrabeh and Deir Hanna.
The confiscated land was approximately the size of 3,000 football fields or the area that extends from the southern tip of Manhattan to the beginning of Central Park in New York, in the United States. Its new use? Build settlements for Jews there. It cannot be understood as occupation, since Galilee is officially Israel, but it can be understood as theft, forced population transfer and change in the social and religious structure of the area, which translates into an erosion of Arabs of Palestinian origin, who today make up more than 20% of the country’s population.
Palestinians, both in Israel and throughout the occupied Palestinian territory – the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem – commemorate this day with protests, vigils and planting olive trees to reaffirm their connection to the land. The demonstrations usually consist of peaceful marches to the border points with Israel, which has been established in Gaza, and they also tend to be reverently repressed by the Israeli Army and its border police.
This year, despite the harshness of Israeli persecution, protests have been called in the three territories and also in cities around the world, as a show of solidarity.
nothing to celebrate
On a day like this, there is nothing to celebrate, because Israel has continued to seize large areas of Palestinian land,
Most recently, on February 8, 2026, Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of far-reaching occupied measures, including facilitating the sale of Palestinian land to Israeli settlers and expanding the powers of Israeli authorities in areas under Palestinian control.
Human rights organizations and several countries condemned Israel’s land grab, calling it a “de facto annexation” and a “deliberate and direct attack” on the viability of a Palestinian state.
Since October 7, 2023, when the attacks occurred (1,200 dead, 251 kidnapped), Israel began an offensive in revenge that has left more than 77,000 murdered and that, in parallel, has intensified both the approval of formal settlements and the establishment of informal outposts. According to , an Israeli anti-settlement group, Israel approved 12,349 homes in 2023, 9,884 in 2024 and a record 27,941 in 2025.
In December, the Israeli security cabinet approved plans to formalize 19 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlements are Jewish communities built illegally on Palestinian lands. Many of the newly approved colonies will be located in densely populated Palestinian areas, which will further limit the freedom of movement of Palestinians and jeopardize the viability of a future Palestinian state.
At the same time, Israeli army raids, home demolitions and arrests in the occupied territory are reaching unprecedented levels, while settlers attack and kill Palestinians and raze their property with impunity, backed by the army and the state.
The Palestinian land we talk about today is theoretically divided into three types:
- Area A. The Palestinian Authority has full control over security and civil affairs. It represents 18% of the territory and includes the main cities and the surrounding territories, without settlements. In theory, Israelis are prohibited from entering these areas, although in reality they can enter quite easily. The Israeli Defense Forces often conduct raids to arrest potential militants.
- Area B. The Palestinians have civilian control and share military control with the Israelis. It makes up 21% of the territory and includes mainly small Palestinian cities, towns and some land, but no settlements.
- Area C. Israel has complete civil and military control. It represents just over 60% of the Palestinian territory and includes all settlements (cities, towns, neighborhoods), lands, all roads that connect the settlements with Israel (exclusive for Israelis), as well as areas defined as a “security zone”, which includes, among others, all the land adjacent to the separation wall. Along with the settlers, some 150,000 Palestinians, most of them Bedouins, live poorly.
The number of settler attacks has increased dramatically in recent years, with 852 recorded in 2022, 1,291 in 2023, 1,449 in 2024 and 1,828 in 2025, which represents an average of five attacks per day. And there are the forced demolitions and expulsions: in the last week alone, the Israeli authorities evicted 15 families from their homes in the Batn Al Hawa area of Silwan (East Jerusalem), forcibly displacing dozens of children and adults, and handing over the properties to settlers.
According to the latest figures from the , at least 1,094 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023.
