Land Day in Gaza: Between memory and the fight for what remains
Sawsan al-Jadba grows crops such as tomatoes, eggplants, and leafy greens to support her family and maintain her connection to the land, March 2026
Maram Humaid reports in Al Jazeera on 30 March 2026:
Inside a tent pitched on a small patch of land, Sawsan al-Jadba sits with her children on the final strip of her property, just metres away from the rest of her seized land.
Before Israel’s 2023 genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the 54-year-old owned three plots of about 2,000 square metres (21,530 square feet) each: One inherited from her father in the eastern Tuffah neighbourhood; another in Abu Safiya, northeast of Gaza City; and a third along Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza.
“They were a paradise,” she recalls. “I planted olive trees and citrus fruits … they were the source of livelihood for me and my children.” Like thousands across Gaza, al-Jadba has seen that reality change completely. Her home was destroyed, and most of her land has become inaccessible as it falls within the so-called “yellow line”, an Israeli military demarcation line that slices through more than half of Gaza’s territory.
Today, only about 600 square metres (6,460 square feet) remain of al-Jadba’s land in Tuffah. She describes the loss as “a deep wound in her chest”, a nightmare she never imagined living through. Still, she is determined to stay put with her daughters and grandchildren, cultivating her remaining plot again despite limited resources.
“Land is like honour,” she says. “Even if only a single metre of my land remains, I will do the impossible to stay on it.”
Al-Jadba says her connection to the land is more than memory or symbolism. It’s a daily experience of both loss and attachment. This reality is closely linked to a not-so-distant past, when she participated in Land Day commemorations recalling the events of March 30, 1976, when six unarmed Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during protests against Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian land.
Fifty years on, Land Day has become a foundational moment in Palestinian national consciousness, renewing the bond between the people and the lands they lost decades ago – not merely as property, but as identity, existence and an inalienable right.
“It was a day when we renewed our connection to lands occupied in 1967 and 1948, demanding our right to return,” al-Jadba says with frustration. “But today, the meaning has completely changed … now we are demanding the lands they took from us during this war, drawing new borders for us.”
During the war, al-Jadba and her family were displaced to southern Gaza, where they stayed for months. Following a “ceasefire” reached between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in October 2025, she rushed back to check on her land.
“I was like someone trying to catch their breath again … what remained of my home was completely destroyed, and the land was bulldozed,” she says. “But I thanked God, now I live on what remains, and I dream of reaching the rest.”
She says she has decided to continue farming as an act of survival and daily resistance.