Israel Beefs Up Security For ‘Land Day’

[Purveyor]

By Agence France-Presse
Friday, March 29, 2013 7:27 EDT

Israel deployed significant security reinforcements on Friday in the occupied West Bank including east Jerusalem for demonstrations commemorating the deaths in 1976 of Arab Israelis on “Land Day”.

“Thousands of police reinforcements have been deployed in Jerusalem including in the Old City to prevent disorder,” a police spokeswoman told AFP.

The measures were introduced “following information that groups of Palestinians were ready to engage in violent demonstrations” during the Land Day commemorations.

--CLIP
On Friday morning, access to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound was limited to Palestinians over the age of 50 and holders of Jerusalem residency cards issued by Israel. There were no restrictions placed on women, however.

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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/29/israel-beefs-up-security-for-land-day/

[azurnoir]

1. First IMO exactly what Land Day is needs to be explained

Last edited Fri Mar 29, 2013, 03:34 PM - Edit history (1)

Land Day

Land Day (Arabic: يوم الأرض?, Yom al-Ard; Hebrew: יוֹם הַאֲדָמָה, Yom HaAdama), March 30, is an annual day of commemoration for Palestinians of the events of that date in 1976. In response to the Israeli government's announcement of a plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for "security and settlement purposes", a general strike and marches were organized in Arab towns from the Galilee to the Negev.[1][2] In the ensuing confrontations with the Israeli army and police, six Arab citizens were killed, about one hundred were wounded, and hundreds of others arrested.[2][3][4][5]

Scholarship on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recognizes Land Day as a pivotal event in the struggle over land and in the relationship of Arab citizens to the Israeli state and body politic. It is significant in that it was the first time since 1948 that Arabs in Israel organized a response to Israeli policies as a Palestinian national collective.[1] An important annual day of commemoration in the Palestinian national political calendar ever since, it is marked not only by Arab citizens of Israel, but also by Palestinians all over the world.[6]

Yifat Holzman-Gazit places the 1976 announcement within the framework of a larger plan devised in 1975. Some 1900 dunams of privately owned Arab land were to be expropriated to expand the Jewish town of Carmiel. Additionally, the plan envisaged the establishment between 1977 and 1981 of 50 new Jewish settlements known as mitzpim (singular: mitzpe) which would consist of fewer than 20 families each. The plan called for these to be located between clusters of Arab villages in the central Galilee affecting some 20,000 dunams (30% of which were to be expropriated from Arabs, 15% from Jews, with the remainder constituting state-owned land).[19] David McDowall identifies the resumption of land seizures in the Galilee and the acceleration of land expropriations in the West Bank in the mid-1970s as the immediate catalyst for both the Land Day demonstration and similar demonstrations that were taking place contemporaneously in the West Bank. He writes: "Nothing served to bring the two Palestinian communities together politically more than the question of land."[20]
The protest of 1976
Tawfiq Ziad addressing a crowd. Location and date unknown.

The government decision to confiscate the land was accompanied by the declaration of a curfew to be imposed on the villages of Sakhnin, Arraba, Deir Hanna, Tur'an, Tamra, and Kabul, effective from 5 p.m. on March 29, 1976.[18] Local Arab leaders from the Rakah party, such as Tawfiq Ziad, who also served as the mayor of Nazareth, responded by calling for a day of general strikes and protests against the confiscation of lands to be held on March 30.[21] The government declared all demonstrations illegal and threatened to fire 'agitators', such as schoolteachers who encouraged their students to participate, from their jobs.[22] The threats were not effective, however, and many teachers led their students out of the classrooms to join the general strike and marches that took place throughout the Arab towns in Israel, from the Galilee in the north to the Negev in south.[1][18][22] Solidarity strikes were also held almost simultaneously in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and in most of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.[23]

The events of the day were unprecedented.[22] According to the International Jewish Peace Union, "To preempt incidents inside Israel on Land Day, about 4,000 policemen, including a helicopter-borne tactical unit and army units, were deployed in the Galilee [...]"[24] During the protests, four unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and two more by police.[18] Nahla Abdo and Ronit Lentin write that three of the dead were women, and that, "the army was allowed to drive armoured vehicles and tanks along the unpaved roads of various villages of the Galilee."[22] About 100 Arabs were wounded and hundreds of others were arrested.[3][4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Day

and of course Israel is beefing up security because how dare those Palestinian demonstrate for what is considered by the Israeli government to be Israels land

[Jefferson23]

2. K&R

[azurnoir]

3. Israeli troops open fire at protesters as Palestinians mark Land Day

Clashes erupted Saturday between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the northern West Bank village of Jayyus east of Qalqiliya, witnesses said.

Eyewitnesses told Ma’an that hundreds of Palestinians gathered in agricultural lands west of Jayyus to plant trees commemorating Land Day before Israeli troops stormed the area.

The soldiers fired tear-gas canisters at the Palestinians who in return hurled stones at the soldiers. Dozens were hurt as they inhaled tear gas, according to onlookers.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=580290