1 year ago
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On Land Day, PENGON-FoE Palestine calls on the international community to end the unjust acts against the Palestinian land, environment, and natural resources.
30 March 2023 marks 47 years of Israel’s confiscation of thousands of dunums of Palestinian land in the Galilee. Land Day has since become a commemoration and tribute to those who have fallen in the struggle to hold onto their land and identity.
The memory of the 1976 land dispossession and the brutality of the Israeli response to Palestinian civil resistance echoes the Palestinian reality today. The Palestinian people are still enduring the acts of the Israeli occupation that aims to dominate the Palestinian land and exploit natural resources.
In the past twenty years, the Israeli occupation’s army and settlers have uprooted more than half a million fruitful trees in the Westbank, the vast majority of which were olive trees. In 2022, 113435 dunums of land were confiscated by the Israeli occupation for colonial expansion, and 18900 trees were destroyed, most of which were olive trees. In addition, more than 950 cisterns, pools, wells, and springs were demolished or confiscated between 2008 and 2022. These water resources were used to irrigate more than 17,215 dunums.
Fifteen years of illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip has caused deterioration of the environment which made Gaza an uninhabitable place. Restrictions imposed by Israel on access to land along Gaza’s perimeter fence undermine the livelihoods of Palestinians. Up to 35% of Gaza’s agricultural land has been affected by these restrictions, which prevent access to large farming areas.
On Land Day, PENGON-FoE Palestine calls on the international community to put in effective measures to uphold international justice and accountability for the systematic violations committed against the Palestinian land and natural resources and to end the occupation. We call on the international community to take effective measures to bring an end to the Israeli siege on Gaza and stop the humanitarian disaster.
