Land Day protest at LEVIEV New York: 60 Years of Nakbah
New York, NY, March 29, 2008 – Saturday’s Land Day protest at the Madison Avenue jewelry store of Israeli billionaire and settlement mogul Lev Leviev highlights the sixty-year Israeli campaign to displace Palestinians from their land, and Palestinian defiance and resistance – from the Nakbah, or Catastrophe, in 1948, when around 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their villages by Israeli forces to become refugees; to the original Land Day protests in 1976; to present day settlement construction by Israeli settlement builders like Lev Leviev in Bil’in, Jayyous, Jabal Abu Ghneim and Maale Adumim.
The first Land Day protests were held on March 30, 1976.
Lev Leviev’s company Africa-Israel, which he purchased in 1996, has been directly involved in the long history of Jewish settlement and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian people. A 2004 Africa-Israel report notes that the company was established in 1934 as Africa Palestine Investments Ltd. "by a group of Jewish investors from
60 years after the Nakbah, and 32 years after the original Land Day, Israeli land seizure and repression continue in the
Responding to the failure of the international community to act to stop
NakbAH: 1948
Hafiza Abdullah (Kanon/ Tulkarem district): The people of my village were only simple farmers and did not have any weapons when we were driven out during the wheat and watermelon picking season of 1948.
Abdul Qader Al-Ha (Qaqon village, Tulkarem): Our village had fertile land and we had a field next to it; The Mediterranean Sea was just eight kilometres away.
Abu Khader Hamdan (Salameh, Yaffa District): I lived and worked in my home village, Salameh, which was less than six kilometers from Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is a relatively new city, it was built on Palestinian land called Tel Al-Rabe, and it was part of Yaffa city.
Abu Khader Hamdan: It was during the orange season and we had managed to harvest our oranges for a month before we were deported.
Abdul Qader Al-Ha: The British gave the Jews their national home in our homeland.
Abdul Qader Al-Ha: They wanted our village in particular because it was in an important location strategically. We tried not to flee, but in the end they brought armed militia with tanks and launched a sustained attack on our village; they wanted to clear all the people from our village.
Mohammad Ahmad Abu Eisha (Al-Sufsaf village, Safad): They had killed every one who they believed was able to carry a gun.
Abu Khader Hamdan: We went first to the town of
Hafiza Abdullah: We did not leave of our own accord: we were forced to flee from the terror and the murders; we were afraid because of what we had heard about the massacres.
Hafiza Abdullah: Our village lands were taken and I can still remember the sizes: Alkhuwar, 30 dunum; Nareyeh, 27 dunum, and Aljereh, 15 dunum. Our trees were uprooted, we lost our home; we had no more wheat, no more corn and no more farm. Even today, the image of what the wheat fields looked like is as fresh in my mind as if I had seen it yesterday. They damaged them and left nothing for us
Mohammad Ahmad Abu Eisha: My village had suffered the same fate as every other village that had resisted and been destroyed.
Abu Khader Hamdan: My friends who did visit it told me Salameh is not there any more--it has been removed from the map.
Abdul Qader Al-Ha: We saw the Jewish militia that became the Israeli army occupy the rest of
Land Day: 1976
Saleh Taha: On the morning of March 30, 1976 the whole village, including farmers, workers, youth, students and others, began a strike to express solidarity in defending their land.
Qassem Sahawhneh: In the morning hours of March 30, 1976, I was in my house when I heard someone announcing a curfew on a loudspeaker. So I told my family that we needed to stay in the house.
Mu'een Khatib: At roughly 6:00 AM on March 30, 1976, I woke up to noise and screaming in our house. Soldiers took me out of my bed and ordered me to go with them outside. Someone grabbed me from my penis and dragged me to the car.
Samia Tawfiq: My son 'Arif was standing next to the road, and an army squad came and took him. When I heard them, I went outside to see what was happening to my son. I saw around five soldiers beating my son (he is 16 years old).
Abed Khalayleh: In the morning of March 30, 1976, I was drinking coffee with my son Khadr on the balcony of our house in Sakhnin, when we heard someone announcing a curfew on a loudspeaker. Suddenly we saw a group of soldiers near our house.
Qassem Sahawhneh: Around 7:30 we heard screaming outside. One of the children, Khalid, who is 9 years old, ran in the direction of the screaming. Then my wife asked our deceased daughter Khadijah to go bring her brother back into the house.
Samia Tawfiq: On the streets there were kids no more than 7 or 8 years old. The soldiers started chasing them and throwing tear gas at them.
Abed Khalayleh: Around 7:30, the teacher Amneh 'Ammar went to school. She ran into a group of soldiers. They ordered her to go back into her house, and as soon as she turned her back, they shot and wounded her.
Qassem Sahawhneh: And then my wife followed Khadijah to see what was happening when they ran into some soldiers. One of the soldiers ordered them to go back into the house, so Khadijah and my wife went back into the house. When she turned around, the soldiers shot her in the back. A bomb exploded in the street about 50 meters from the house. Khadijah was martyred when she was 23 years old.
Abed Khalayleh: After that there was a big commotion, and we heard someone saying that Amneh was killed and others saying that she was wounded. I went down to Khadr and others to help her and take her to the hospital.
Samia Tawfiq: And when I tried to save him from them, they started beating me and cursing at me. I went back into the house, and after a short while, APCs came filled with soldiers.
Abed Khalayleh: Khadr got there before me, and while he was trying to help Amneh, the soldiers shot him. Someone else was shot as well, Sayyid Khalaylah, when he was trying to help the wounded. Khadr was hit in his head and his arm and he died on the spot.
Saleh Taha: The strike organizers were working to keep the strike peaceful and not to respond to the provocations of the authorities, including the police and border patrol, who were trying to provoke the youngsters by cursing and spitting at them and insulting their religion.
Mu'een Khatib: Then they took us to a barn outside our village, while continuing to beat us. They shoved me over to a small tree and I ran away. They ran after me while shooting at me, and I heard one of them say in Hebrew, "I hit him and he is going to die like the others; leave him."
Subhi Hudhud: I was arrested Tuesday morning, March 30, 1976, inside the mosque, when they pointed a gun at me and took me to a car and began beating me with sticks.
Saleh Taha: The border patrol assaulted the women and the youngsters by hitting them with sticks and throwing tear gas at them. They attacked the village from the west and the east; they stormed the houses, broke doors and beat anyone they found inside the houses. The assaults by the authorities led to the killing of one of the villages, the martyr Muhsin Taha, and the wounding of others. It continued until 1:00 in the afternoon. It took place in the presence of an Israeli colonel and other high ranking officers.
Samia Tawfiq: They stormed our house and found my two young boys, one who is 12 years old and the other who is two years old, and began destroying the furniture in the house. They broke the closet, two windows, a stove, a radio, plates, and other things around the house. They beat my twelve year old son and threatened my little one to scare him.
Ibrahim Yassin (63 years old): The policemen and army broke into my house, and started beating us. I dashed to protect my daughter Fatima, when the policeman in my house beat me and dragged my daughter Fatima outside to the hall. They put her down, stepped on her and broke two teeth of hers. They also beat my other daughter (Miriam), then they took me to the carpentry and beat me and arrested me.
Mohammad Abu Yunis: I was in my house in Sakhnin on the morning of March 30, 1976 when I heard shooting. I went near the main road in town to get my children, who were playing next to the road. Then I felt two bullets hit my left leg.
Saleem Khalifeh: Around 8:00 in the morning on March 30, 1976, I was listening to the radio on my balcony. Suddenly, my brother Na'im Muhammad Khalifah, who was standing next to me, was wounded. The injury was in his abdomen. My brother was around 11 years old.
Mohammad Badarneh: At 10:00 in the morning, March 30, 1976, I was in my house in Sakhnin. I saw my cousin who lives next to me; he was wounded. I ran to help him and carried him toward the car to take him to the hospital. While I was carrying him, the soldiers shot at me from about 10-15 meters away and hit me in my leg. It caused a severe injury.
Ali Dgheim: Around 9:00 in the morning of March 30, 1976, I was in the electronics store in Sakhnin that belonged to my brother. The Israeli soldiers were flooding into the village and shooting heavily everywhere. I said two men, Subhi Muhammad Badarneh and Muhammad Deeb Badarneh, who were wounded next to my brother's store, so I ran to help them. While I was trying to carry one of the wounded, the soldiers shot at me from about 10-15 meters away.
Saleh Taha: When the provocations didn't stop but instead escalated, the whole village protested, young and old alike. The police responded by shooting at the student at the village Northern School and wounding one of the villagers. The shooting continued, as did the protest.
Abdel Qader Taher: The authorities began widespread arrests in the middle of the night of March 31, 1976. They raided my home . . . they destroyed things in the house, frightened my children and hit my wife. They pointed their weapons at the chests of my children
Subhi Hudhud: They took me with others to the Kfar Saba police station and they crammed a large number of us in a small room. During my interrogation, they beat me with sticks and chairs and forced me to sign a confession.
Abdel Qader Taher: In the Kfar Saba station they locked us in a room that looked like a cell and continued to beat us, while they were hysterically yelling that we should have been arrested as children so that they wouldn't have to dirty their hands with us as adults. They called us filthy communists, saboteurs and bastards.
Bil'in and Jayyous: 2003 to present
Sharif Omar: Jayyous' farmland includes some of the most fertile and water rich land in the
Mohammed Khatib: The olive is a symbol of our land and of the Palestinian people. We are connected to the land. We were born in Bil'in like our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers. We belong here. Our mothers took us to harvest olives before we could speak. We remember playing under the olive trees which have since been uprooted by Israeli settlers who have come to live here.
Sharif Omar: In October, 1988 the Israeli military governor of our district, Qalqilya, gave Jayyous' mayor a military declaration saying that nearly 500 acres of Jayyous' agricultural land "state land" and Israeli settlers began to build the colony of Zufim on our land.
Sharif Omar: In 1993 Leader - a real state enterprise owned by the businessman Lev Leviev - established a quarry on some of Jayyous' land. During this period it became clear that Leader was an enemy of the people of Jayyous. Leader used bulldozers to prepare our land for houses for Israeli settlers, and TNT to detonate more than 16 acres for a quarry. They uprooted all the olive trees on that land. Many olive trees died because sewage from Zufim ran for many years many years through other plots. Other plots were annexed to Zufim.
Sharif Omar: In September, 2002 a shepherd found a paper hanging from an olive tree. It was a military order instructing us to meet an Israeli army officer to tour the "separation" wall's path. Hundreds of area Palestinians turned out. Most farmers expected the wall would be near the Green Line,
Mohammed Khatib: Bil'in is being strangled by the Wall. Though our village sits 2 1/2 miles east of the Green Line,
Sharif Omar: People burst into tears. Some fainted. With the wall,
Mohammed Khatib: There is now a huge and growing settlement called Modi'in Illit where we played as children. Instead of seeing my children play under those trees, I will watch a child who is a stranger play there -- a child whose family just recently came to live on our land, without any right to do so, simply because of the power of the occupation.
Sharif Omar: Leader then announced that it would build 1500 new homes in a large area located 1.2 miles north of Zufim for "
Mohammed Khatib: We refuse to be strangled by the Wall in silence. In a famous Palestinian short story "Men in the Sun," Palestinian workers suffocate inside a tanker truck. Upon discovering them, the driver screams, "Why didn't you bang on the sides of the tank?" We are banging; we are screaming.
Sharif Omar: Jayyous' farmers have organized dozens of peaceful protests against the wall, supported by international solidarity movements and Israeli peace activists. Our weapons in those activities were only slogans that condemn the occupation and the wall. All of us participated, young and old, men and women. We are determined never to surrender or forget our sacred land. We faced the bulldozers destroying our fields as well as armed Israeli soldiers and guards. During one peaceful march, an Israeli military officer explained to me that Sarah, the wife of our common ancestor Abraham, was their mother but not ours, and that because Sarah went to heaven, Jews were entitled to the land. After his lecture, he used tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to break up our protest.
Mohammed Khatib: For the last three years we have engaged in a nonviolent campaign of creative protests with the support of Israeli and international activists to prevent the construction of
Sharif Omar: Despite more than 60 nonviolent protests, the wall has been built, uprooting 4,000 trees and cutting off 75% of our land. More than 70% of Jayyous' farmers are now denied access to their land, many to the area where Leviev plans to expand Zufim. Hundreds of Israeli activists helped us to harvest our olives this fall because so many people from Jayyous could not reach their land.
Mohammed Khatib: We developed creative activities for our weekly protests. One Friday, activists locked themselves inside a cage, representing the wall's impacts. Another time, we built a Palestinian "outpost" on our village's land located behind the wall and next to an Israeli settlement, mimicking the Israeli strategy of establishing outposts to expand settlements. Another Friday we handed the Israeli soldiers a letter saying, "Had you come here as guests, we would show you the trees that our grandfathers planted here, and the vegetables that we grow... There will never be security for any of us until Israelis respect our rights to this land."
Sharif Omar: We are engaged in a struggle for justice, for our freedom - indeed, for our very lives.
Mohammed Khatib: Over three years of protests in Bil'in more than 800 activists were injured in more than 200 demonstrations in Bil'in. An Israeli attorney and a Bil'in resident both suffered permanent brain damage from rubber-coated steel bullets shot by Israeli soldiers from close range. Another Palestinian lost sight in one eye. 49 Bil'in residents, including some protest leaders, were arrested. Some spent months in prison.
Sharif Omar: Last September I was working in my olive grove near the wall, when I came across uprooted olive trees coming out of the bulldozed ground. These green young branches are soft and beautiful, deeply rooted in the ground and stronger than the wall and bulldozers. These trees refuse to die or to surrender, and send a message to all farmers and people who love the land. "Do not give up, and keep struggling and one day you will touch the sun." We have been here longer than these trees, and we will stay here longer than the stones.
Mohammed Khatib: In Bil'in, we have chosen a strategy which makes clear who is the victim and who is the victimizer. We know the Israeli army can choose to deal with us in two ways. If they choose violence, we make sure to get photographs for the media so that everyone sees what we were up against. And if they don't use violence then we achieve our aim of stopping their bulldozers and delaying construction of their Wall and settlements. But even if the soldiers put down their weapons, which they have not, that would not make us equals in the field. We would always be the stronger because we have the power of justice on our side.
Mohammed Khatib: As a result of our protests and in response to our legal petition, in September, 2007, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Israel's wall must be rerouted to return half of our land that was being seized, but the Supreme Court also legalized the settlement that Leviev is building on the remaining 25% of our land, though the wall is being built in violation of even Israeli law.
Mohammed Khatib: In response, we vowed to continue our nonviolent struggle to save the olive groves that our families have cultivated for centuries, and we have put our experience at the service of other communities struggling against the wall and settlements.
Excerpts taken from the testimonies of:
NAKBAH: 1948
Hafiza Abdullah,original village: Kanon/ Tulkarem district, current address: Shweikeh/ Tulkarem
Abu Khader Hamdan, born in 1928, original home: Salameh, Yaffa District, current address: Askar Refugee Camp/
Abdul Qader Al-Ha, born in 1938, original home: Qaqon village, Tulkarem, current address: Askar Refugee Camp,
Om Issa Abu Sereyyeh, born in 1916, original home: Shekh Emwanes, Yafa District, current address: Askar Refugee Camp,
Mohammad Ahmad Abu Eisha, 18 years old in 1948, original home: Al-Sufsaf village/ Safad, current address: Al-Ein Refugee Camp/
LAND DAY: 1976
Abdel Qader Thaher: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/4-1.htm
Saleh Taha: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/3-2.htm
Ali Dgheim: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/2-5.htm
Subhi Hudhud: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/4-3.htm
Mohammad Badarneh: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/2-3.htm
Saleem Khalifeh: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/1-7.htm
Mohammad Abu Yunis: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/2-4.htm
Ibrahim Yassin, Arraba.
Samia Tawfiq: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/5-7.htm
Mu'een Khatib: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/1-6.htm
Abed Khalayleh: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/2-7.htm
Qassem Sahawhneh: http://www.baqoon.com/w1/shahadat/2-6.htm
BIL’IN AND JAYYOU: 2003 – Present
Sharif Omar, the
Mohammed Khatib, the
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