ICSPR: The commemoration of Land Day is a real occasion to restore national unity in the face of Israeli settlement policies.
Number: 37/ 2022
Date: March 29, 2022
Original language: Arabic
Press release
ICSPR: The commemoration of Land Day is a real occasion to restore national unity in the face of Israeli settlement policies.
Wednesday March 30, marks the 46th anniversary of the Eternal Land Day, which the Palestinians commemorate annually to honor the memory of the 1976 events, in which the Palestinian masses gathered from the Galilee to the Negev in protest against the Israeli policies, procedures and decisions related to the confiscation of thousands of dunams of lands that belong to Palestinians, where the masses were confronted with excessive use of force by the Israeli army and police, killing 6 civilians and wounding dozens.
The occasion comes this year with the Israeli occupation’s insistence to carry out ethnic cleansing crimes against the Palestinian people and their rights. These crimes, which are being perpetrated in a deliberate manner based on an approach reinforced by racism, extremism, murder, theft of land from Palestinians, and depriving them of exercising their right to determine their political destiny.
Over the years of its military occupation of the Palestinian lands, especially the West Bank and Jerusalem, the Israeli occupation authorities have persisted in perpetuating colonial settlement, adopting a policy of deliberate land appropriation and annexation, judaizing the city of Jerusalem, demolishing homes, preventing construction, erecting the wall, establishing and expanding the construction of settlements, separating the West Bank’s cities and villages from each other, the continuation of racial discrimination policies against Palestinian citizens in the 48 areas, and the continuation of the siege on the Gaza Strip, taking advantage from the state of international silence on the one hand and from the successive US measures on the other.
The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR) shares our Palestinian people the commemoration of Land Day, condemns the continuation of the Israeli military occupation in Palestine, renews its strong condemnation of the ongoing Israeli crimes of annexing the occupied territories and forced displacement, and it reminds the international community of the tragedy and suffering that the Palestinian people have been subjected to since 1948 due to the crimes of the Israeli occupation, which has caused the Palestinians to live in a state of asylum and dispersion.
ICSPR also reaffirms the right of the Palestinians to confront and resist the Israeli occupation and its denial of legitimate and inalienable rights for the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and the right of refugees to return to their land, and stresses that the grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people during the past years constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity with no statute of limitations, and that the perpetrators must be held accountable and prosecuted, and the victims must be redressed. Therefore:
• ICSPR expresses its deep concern about the Israeli executive, judicial and legislative policies and practices, especially those related to the appropriation of land and the Judaization of Jerusalem, and the continued establishment and expansion of settlements to change the demographic and geographical character of the Palestinian territories in the 48 areas and the occupied territories in 1967, in a way that prevents establishing an independent Palestinian state.
• ICSPR strongly condemns the international community’s continued silence and complicity, and condemns the Israeli malicious advantaging of the world’s preoccupation with the events of Russia and Ukraine to pass its racist policy, which contributes to the continuation and exacerbation of the suffering of the Palestinian people and depriving them of their right to self political and economic determination.
• ICSPR stresses that this occasion and the current circumstances constitute a unique opportunity to emphasize the importance of Palestinian people unity in all places of presence, and the need to consider the comprehensive Palestinian elections as a means aimed at ending the division and rebuilding and activating all the institutions of the political system, especially the Palestine Liberation Organization, to assume its responsibilities in protecting the rights of the Palestinian people.
• ICSPR calls on the international community not to sacrifice the principles of international law and order, and to work hard to implement United Nations resolutions related to the Palestinian cause, and to impose sanctions on the occupation state to stop its crimes of colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing, racial discrimination, siege and attacks on civilians, and to end the state of military occupation of the Palestinian territories.
• ICSPR calls upon the peoples of the world to strengthen their solidarity with the Palestinian people to enable them to exercise their legitimate rights in accordance with international law and the humanitarian goals represented in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the rules of international humanitarian law and other relevant international charters and agreements.
ICSPR
