Atef Douglas-Nablus
At his home in Umm al-Fahm, in the occupied Palestinian interior in 1948, Palestinian leader Suleiman Fahmawi continues his latest preparations to revive the activities of the 44th anniversary of the Palestinian Land Day.
Across the virtual world, and under the tag "#khalek_in_home", on Monday, the Palestinians launched, in their various locations in the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Occupied Interior, their various activities to mark Earth Day, to prevent infection with the Corona virus.
Fahmawi, the president of the Association for the Defense of the Displaced in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 1948, suffers a lump as he puts the finishing touches in the company of his counterparts from leaders and active personalities.
The choice will be a "difficult" option for the activist, and he is like all Palestinians. Their mass rallies will be replaced at 5 pm this evening by an event to raise the Palestinian flag through balconies and windows.
| Khaled Mansour, a leader in the popular resistance, while confronting the occupation soldiers at an event in Nablus (Al-Jazeera) |
Each person will be left with the mechanism of solidarity and memorialization "digitally" as he sees it, whether by raising the Palestinian flag in personal photos or pairing it with "salafi" images, and launching various labels to commemorate the memorial.
Fahmawi says to Al-Jazeera Net and the sadness appears in his tone of voice that this is the least they can do in solidarity with their land, and it is "the weakest faith" in light of the quarantine and closure imposed by Israel to prevent the spread of the Corona virus.
He believes that their revival of Earth Day in any way confirms the unity of the Arab masses within the Palestinian interior, which is one message from more than one million and six hundred thousand Palestinians to Israel and its security arms, that they are "one people holding on to what remains of their land and returning what was confiscated from them."
And in order not to make it a passing day, the Palestinians will go inside, if they are allowed to move through a group of no more than ten people, to lay wreaths of flowers on the monument of martyrs who rose and defended them on Earth Day, in the major cities and towns, especially the godfather of Al-Batouf, Sakhnin and Deir Hanna And other towns.
| Al-Shuhada Roundabout, in the center of Nablus, where Earth Day activities are annually witnessed, free of people due to the prohibition of Corona (Al-Jazeera) |
Activities and activities that Palestinians are used to organizing to mark Earth Day were canceled, such as launching marches for expropriated and threatened lands with confiscation to enhance communication with them and pretending to areas of friction and confrontation with the occupation, such as military barriers, settlements and the separation wall.
It also stopped non-systematic activities in schools and universities and educational and political seminars and others that were postponed for the coming days, and some were implemented individually and not collectively, such as planting trees and supporting the resilience of citizens within their threatened lands, and all of these activities were replaced by electronic activities that are not less important and under the signs of #Khalik_Balatti and #Day_Earth and # Raise your knowledge.
The events of Earth Day return to 1976, a day when the Palestinians inside the Green Line refused to repeat the scenario of their catastrophe in 1948 by forcibly expropriating their land by the occupying Power and through racist laws. Thousands defended their land and 13 Palestinians were martyred inside, then the range of confrontations extended to the occupied Palestinian territories in 1967.
| Young men sit under a Palestinian flagpole raised over their lands, which the occupation has threatened to seize in the town of Beita, south of Nablus (Al-Jazeera) |
This movement and direct contact with the occupation - according to a member of the factional coordination committee in the West Bank city of Nablus, Imad Eshteiwi - will not stop, and will continue through popular resistance in all its forms, especially in areas threatened by settlement, especially the Palestinian valleys.
Shtaiwi says to Al-Jazeera Net that this does not cancel the Palestinian response, "individually and within public safety mechanisms," to settler attacks, which violated the curfew, and took advantage of the absence of citizens and escalated their attacks.
However, due to the conditions of Corona, the Palestinians will rise at 7 pm "electronically" with standard slogans for Earth Day, and flags will rise on rooftops and through windows and above "emergency centers" that were prepared to treat people with corona, as well as statements of forces and factions that unite their message "to adhere to" Land and the Palestinian constants. "
The letter of these factions will be strengthened by the press conference to be held this afternoon in Gaza City to mark Earth Day, after the "Return Marches" event has been canceled, and according to a statement by the National Authority for Return Marches and facing the deal will stop traffic five minutes in the Strip, followed by the launch of a public sterilization campaign for the streets there .
It does not commemorate the Day of the Earth for a passing occasion, rather it reminds the Palestinians in the occupied interior that the remaining 93% of their land before their occupation in 1948 no longer exceeds 3.5%, or about 700,000 dunams (a dunam is a thousand square meters) only.
It is the same injustice that the Palestinians incurred - and are still - in the territories occupied in 1967, and that only 22% or a little more than 10% of their land in the West Bank, estimated at 5,654 square kilometers, will be left for them, especially in light of the annexations and expansion operations Practiced by Israel to drop the deal of the century.
All the earth
That is why Israel, and all its racist practices of Judaizing the land and displacing its owners, is returning the Palestinians - as Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti says - to a "one state" solution, which will be the democratic state of the Palestinians for all its people.
Al-Barghouti says to Al-Jazeera Net that the expropriation of the land and taking its ownership are merely cards that will change when the balance of forces changes, and that uniting the Palestinian people with all its components and whereabouts to revive Earth Day must be "a guiding light for the reunification of all Palestinian energies, with the aim of building an alternative national strategy for what failed and to change the balance Powers in favor of the Palestinian people. "
Despite his "bad" feeling about the absence of these activities on Earth Day, the leader, Hammawi, believes that the "ordeal" will turn into a "grant" through social media platforms that unite and have a great impact, and the same feeling prompted Khaled Mansour, one of the most prominent leaders of the popular resistance in the West Bank, to start since yesterday evening, By posting his photos and previous posts on Earth Day via his Facebook page, he wrote: "The length of what the soul is in the body we will not leave the country."