Thousands of Palestinians on Thursday marked "Land Day", which commemorates six Palestinian protesters killed by Israeli troops 40 years ago as recent global changes shatter Palestinians' remaining hopes for an end to the Israeli occupation.
On the first Land Day on March 30, 1976, thousands of Palestinians demonstrated against the seizure of thousands of square kilometers in the Galilee region of what is now northern Israel, where Palestinians constitute an overwhelming majority.
Galilee residents responded to the land seizure by declaring a general strike, which prompted Israeli troops to enter the region in force and clash with Palestinians whose lands were taken by force. After Israeli intervention to the protests, six Palestinians were killed and more than 100 were injured.
Each year, Palestinians living in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories gather on Land Day to protest the ongoing Israeli occupation, reaffirm their determination to take back their land and remember Khadija Shawahneh, Khader Khalaila, Khair Yassin, Mohsen Taha, Raafat al-Zuhiri and Raja Abu Raya, the six people who were killed in 1976.
Palestinians are marking the day in 2017 with a march in northern Israel and rallies in other Israeli regions, the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. However, the situation worsens for Palestinians in the region as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assumes a more aggressive policy in building settlements in occupied territories.
The shifts in U.S. President Donald Trump's Mideast policy also caused concern among Palestinians. Since taking office in January, Trump has indicated that he is willing to break with decades of US policy by moving the embassy and being open to a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if both sides agree to it.
Trump's campaign platform also made no mention of a Palestinian state, and his appointed ambassador to Israel has expressed skepticism about a two-state solution in the past. Trump's inner circle includes aides with ties to the West Bank settler movement, which objects to the creation of an independent Palestine.
For nearly a half-century, the Israeli military has occupied the West Bank, the land Palestinians want for an independent state.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel has seized 85 percent -- some 27,000 square kilometers -- of the land of historical Palestine since the Jewish state was established in 1948.
International law considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem to be "occupied territories" captured by Israel in 1967, deeming all construction of Jewish settlements on the land to be illegal.
Until today, Israel has continued to misappropriate Palestinian land in the West Bank -- on which it has steadily continued to build Jewish-only settlements -- in breach of international law.
The Palestinian Authority, for its part, continues to call for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem -- currently occupied by Israel -- as its capital.
