Date: March 30, 2025
Press Release
On the 50th Anniversary of Land Day
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights (ICSPR), together with the Palestinian people wherever they are, commemorates the 50th anniversary of Land Day. This year’s commemoration comes under the most dangerous and harshest conditions since the Nakba of 1948, as the Palestinian people face an unprecedented phase of settler-colonialism targeting their existence and national rights through an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, alongside creeping annexation and settlement expansion in the West Bank, and the Judaization of occupied Jerusalem through laws and measures aimed at legitimizing land confiscation and imposing Israeli sovereignty.
On the ground, the occupation continues to control more than 67% of the West Bank and over 50% of the Gaza Strip, while implementing forced displacement policies affecting around 60,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and more than two million displaced persons in Gaza, reinforcing a demographic reality aimed at preventing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
As part of imposing facts on the ground, Israel continues to entrench genocide, violate the ceasefire agreement, and expand the so-called “Yellow Line” within Gaza, establishing military sites and zones extending approximately 45 kilometers along the Strip, deepening military control and annexing المزيد of Palestinian land.
In the West Bank, Israel reinforces its control through more than 1,000 permanent and mobile military checkpoints, expanding colonial settlements, constructing thousands of settlement units, and imposing laws and measures aimed at consolidating Israeli sovereignty over occupied land, including undermining the role of the Palestinian Authority and imposing a coercive reality that obstructs any serious effort toward establishing an independent Palestinian state.
This anniversary comes as the Gaza Strip remains under a brutal and ongoing military offensive and genocide since October 2023. By March 2026, more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 10,000 remain missing under the rubble, and more than 171,000 have been injured. Over 80% of infrastructure and residential buildings have been destroyed, turning Gaza into a humanitarian disaster zone unfit for life. Israel continues to use starvation and deprivation of water as weapons of war by maintaining the closure of crossings and obstructing the entry of humanitarian aid, fuel, temporary shelters, and medical supplies, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
In the West Bank, systematic targeting of civilians and land confiscation continue to escalate, with the approval of thousands of new settlement units and the legalization of outposts, including pastoral ones, as part of a plan to impose full Israeli sovereignty over Area C. Armed settler militias, under the protection of the Israeli army, have intensified attacks—especially during March—carrying out organized assaults on Palestinian towns and villages, including the burning of homes and crops and the forced displacement of Bedouin communities.
In occupied Jerusalem, systematic Judaization policies continue through intensified settlement expansion and the isolation of the city from its Palestinian surroundings via the separation wall and military checkpoints, alongside the closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque for the second consecutive month, in a serious violation of freedom of worship and an attempt to impose a new religious and political reality while erasing the Palestinian identity of the city.
Israel also continues its grave violations against Palestinian prisoners through policies of abuse, torture, and inhumane treatment, in clear breach of international humanitarian law.
Meanwhile, within the 1948 territories, systematic racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens continues as part of a comprehensive apartheid regime.
In a broader context, these policies form part of an expansionist and aggressive approach that extends to attacks on countries in the region, reflecting Israel’s insistence on imposing regional dominance and advancing expansionist projects known as “Greater Israel.”
ICSPR affirms that the land and the Palestinian cause will remain at the core of the conflict, and that all attempts by the occupation to impose new realities or alter demographic and geographic facts will not undermine the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among them the right to self-determination, the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of refugees to return to their homes.
Accordingly, ICSPR calls for the following:
- The international community, led by the United Nations and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, to take immediate action to stop the crime of genocide and provide international protection to the Palestinian people.
- The International Criminal Court to expedite the issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including settlement expansion, forced displacement, and genocide, to ensure accountability.
- All countries to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on Israel and hold it accountable as an apartheid state, given the threat this poses to international peace and security.
- The restoration of Palestinian national unity, an immediate end to internal division, and the development of a unified national strategy based on political partnership and strengthened popular and legal resistance.
- Free people around the world to take meaningful action and pressure their governments to fulfill their moral and legal responsibilities to stop Israeli crimes, end the occupation, and dismantle the system of settler-colonial apartheid.
