Land Means Everything: Palestinian Land Day, the Separation Wall and Land Grabs

On Palestinian Land Day (March 30) the world has an opportunity to learn some of the facts of the ongoing land grabs in the region. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories not only takes Palestinian land for Israeli use. The settler-only structures and infrastructure also annex land and cut off Palestinians from each other, curtail their ability to move freely, and make it difficult – and often impossible – for students to go to schools, patients to visit hospitals, and farmers to access their land and grow food.

  Grassroots International released a fact sheet, “The Israeli Occupation is a Land Grab,” that exposes some of the history and ongoing struggle for land, such as:

• Upon completion, the Separation Wall will de facto annex nearly half of the West Bank. The eastern part of the wall annexes the fertile farmland of the Jordan Valley. A similar barrier and buffer zones close off the Gaza Strip.
• Up to half a million Israeli settlers live in 125 official settlements and more than 100 unofficial settlements in the West Bank. The settlements are accessed through paved and walled-off segregated Israeli-only roads which also cut through Palestinian land.
• Farmers must ask for permits from Israeli authorities to work their land beyond the Wall—even if it is within the 1967 boundaries.

Grassroots International continues to support our partners in Palestine and around the world in efforts to win the human right to land.