Each year on 30 March, Palestinians mark Land Da y, which commemorates the events of 1976 when Israeli authorities confiscated thousands of dunams of land in the Galilee, the Triangle, and the Negev.
The widespread theft sparked widespread protests among Palestinian who were able to remain in 1948 and hold Israeli citizenship—six people were killed by Israeli security forces .
Since then, Land Day has become one of the most important national commemorations for Palestinians, symbolising their attachment to the land and their rejection of its confiscation.
Across Palestine and in the diaspora, the day is often marked with marches, cultural events, and the planting of trees—particularly olive trees—as a symbol of rootedness and endurance.
This year in Gaza , the anniversary arrives amid an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. Large parts of the territory lie in ruins after months of war, and hundreds of thousands of residents remain displaced.
Yet even in these circumstances, many Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave still find ways to mark the day—sometimes simply by remaining on their land, or by planting a small tree beside the ruins of a home.
A few meters from a wide strip of bare earth cutting across northern Gaza , Nasser Al-Zaanin, a 52-year-old farmer, stood beside a small tent he pitched among the ruins of shattered homes near Beit Hanoun.
The landscape is dominated by earth mounds and Israeli military positions, and above, the constant buzz of drones.
The area where al-Zaanin stood is known among Palestinians as the "Yellow Line", a broad stretch of land inside the Gaza Strip where Israeli forces imposed strict restrictions during the war, turning it into a militarised buffer zone.
For residents of border communities such as Beit Hanoun, the line has become a physical and psychological barrier separating them from homes.
Each morning, Nasser walked to the same spot, staring toward the town where he once lived. Somewhere beyond the mounds of sand and military posts stood the house he built with his own hands more than two decades ago.
"My home is there, just minutes from here. I used to walk there in five minutes. Now I can only stand here and look at it from afar. But I know I will return one day," he told The New Arab .
Before Israel's genocidal war, Nasser lived a modest but stable life. He raised sheep and worked the land around Beit Hanoun, supporting his wife and three children.
Like many farmers in northern Gaza , his life revolved around the rhythms of the land.
That life was shattered when Israel launched its genocidal war in October 2023. Beit Hanoun quickly became one of the most heavily bombarded areas in the Gaza Strip , forcing thousands of residents, including Nasser and his family, to flee south.
Months later, despite the dangers and the uncertainty, he made his way back north and pitched a tent near the area separating him from his town.
"People say it is dangerous to stay here," he said. "But leaving the land is even more dangerous. If we leave it, they will say the land has no owners."
For Nasser, remaining close to his land is an act of quiet resistance.
"This is our land, and nobody else's. We lived on it, we raised our children on it, and we buried our fathers in it. No force in the world can make me believe this land is not mine," he said.
He dreams of the day he will return to his property, even if all that remains is rubble.
"When the army withdraws, I will go straight to my land. Even if everything is destroyed, I will put up a tent and live there until I rebuild my home. What matters is that I return," he added. "We may lose our houses, but we will not lose our land," he added. Staying behind Further west in the devastated Jabalia refugee camp, 74-year-old Abdullah Abu Awda lives close to a slab of broken concrete surrounded by the wreckage of what was once a densely populated neighbourhood.
During months of bombardment, the Israeli army killed his three sons in separate airstrikes. The home where he had lived for decades was also destroyed.
Yet despite the enormity of his loss, Abu Awda told TNA that leaving Gaza has never crossed his mind.
In the evenings, he gathers with a few remaining neighbours near the ruins of their homes. Together they recall the days before the war, the farmland they cultivated and the life they once knew in northern Gaza .
"I lost my three sons in this war, and I have almost nothing left. But I never once thought about leaving this land," he said. "They may destroy our homes and take many things from us, but they cannot take the land if we remain on it."
Abu Awda often remembers stories his father told him about the Palestinian villages whose inhabitants were expelled during the 1948 Nakba.
"My father used to say that the land is like a mother," he described. "A person does not abandon their mother, no matter what happens."
"If I pass away before you, I ask my neighbours for only one thing: do not abandon the land. It does not belong to Israel; it belongs to its people," he added. "Even if only one person stays here, they must hold on to it. The land will not be lost as long as someone protects it."
"My sons are gone, but their memory remains here in this land. I will never leave it," Abu Awda concluded. Planting hope Hundreds of kilometres south in Khan Younis, Sumaya al-Najjar is preparing to commemorate Land Day, which she's done for years.
Before the war, every 30 March, she used to go to the farmland east of Khan Younis, near the eastern fence separating Gaza from Israel, to plant a new olive tree.
"Every year, I planted one olive tree. It was my way of telling the world that we are here and we are staying," she told TNA . Today, however, the farmland where she once planted those trees lies inside an area now under Israeli military occupation.
Instead, Sumaya heads to what remains of her destroyed home in Khan Younis, holding a small olive sapling in her hands.
"I could not reach the land where I usually plant every year, so I decided to plant the tree here next to my home," she said. "The olive tree lives a long time. Maybe when I rebuild my house, this tree will already be grown."
"When the house is rebuilt again, the tree will grow with it. It will be a witness that this land belongs to Palestinians ," she added.
"The olive tree means survival," al-Najjar noted. "Even if houses are destroyed, the trees remain and say that this land has owners."
For people like Nasser, Abdullah, and Sumaya, the land is more than territory: it is memory, identity, and the promise of return.
And so, even amid the rubble, they continue to hold on to a single conviction: whatever happens, they will remain on their land.