On the eve of the 43rd annual commemoration of Land Day, on 30/03/2019, H.E. Ms. Ola Awad, President of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics "PCBS", highlighted the Land Day in statistical figures, as follows:



The Palestinian people remember the confiscation of 21 thousand dunums of land in Al-Jalil, Al-Muthalath and Al-Naqab on 30 March 1976. On this day, the Israeli occupation expropriated the land and responded violently to the protestations, killing six young demonstrators. Israeli occupation laid hand over more than 85% of the total area of historical land of Palestine, which totals about 27,000 km2. Palestinians comprise 48% of the total population, but utilize only 15% of Palestine historical land.
 
Continuous Confiscation of Land
The Israeli occupation used the land classification according to the Oslo Agreement (A, B, C) to tighten control of the Palestinian land, especially in areas classified as (C) with an area of 3,375 thousand  dunums.  About 2,642 thousand dunums, constituting 76.3% of the total area classified (C)  is exploited by the Israeli occupation directly. The area classified (A)  is about one million dunums, and the area classified (B)  is 1,035 thousand dunums, and the area classified "Others" is 250 thousand dunums includes (Natural Reserves, and J1  in East Jerusalem, and H2  in Hebron, and unclassified areas).  In 2018, the Israeli occupation confiscated 508 dunums of the Palestinian land, in addition to confiscating hundreds of dunums of the Palestinians through the expansion of Israeli checkpoints and establishments of military checkpoints to protect the settlers.
 

Theft of Agricultural Land
The total area of land classified as high or medium agricultural value in the West Bank is 2,072 thousand dunums, constituting about 37% of the West Bank. The Palestinians use only 931.5 thousand dunums which constitute about 17% of the West Bank area.

The reasons for the non-exploitation of agricultural land in the West Bank, where areas (C) constitute about 60% of the area of the West Bank, which is still under full Israeli control that deprived many farmers from accessing to their land and cultivation or taking care of cultivated areas which led to the destruction of most of the crops in those areas, in addition to bulldozing and uprooting 7,122 trees during 2018 by the Israeli occupation forces, bringing the number of trees uprooted more than one million trees from 2000 until the end of 2018. Thousands of dunums were confiscated by settlers, to be cultivated, where the area planted in the Israeli settlements in the year 2018 reached about 110 thousand dunums, the majority of irrigated agriculture.

Israeli Settlements: Continuous Expansion
The areas of influence in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank 541.5 square kilometers (km2), representing about 9.6% of the West Bank, while the confiscated areas for the purposes of military bases and military training are about 18% of the West Bank, which deprives the Palestinian farmers and herders of access to their farms and pastures. The Israeli occupation places all obstacles to tightening the siege and restricting the urban expansion of the Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem and areas (C), in the West Bank, which are still under full Israeli control, in addition to the expansion and annexation Wall, which also isolates more than 12% of the West Bank land. Data findings indicated that the total number of settlers in the West Bank was 653,621 by the end of 2017, where about 47% of them were living in Jerusalem Governorate with a total number of about 306,529, while 225,335 of them were living in Jerusalem J1 (those parts of Jerusalem which were annexed by Israeli Occupation in 1967). In demographic terms, the proportion of settlers to the Palestinian population in the West Bank is around 22.6 settlers per 100 Palestinians compared with 70 settlers per 100 Palestinians in Jerusalem Governorate.

Continuous Siege on Gaza Strip
Despite the small area of Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation set up a buffer zone over the Eastern border of Gaza Strip, which is considered the most populous area in the world with about 5,204 Person/ km2, compared to 509 Person/ km2 in the West Bank.

Jerusalem: Intensive and Systematic Judaization
At the time that the Israeli occupation demolish Palestinian buildings, and put obstacles and impediments to the issuance of building permits, the Israeli occupation issued deportation orders for 12 Bedouin communities in East Jerusalem, comprising some 1,400 people, in the effort to Judaize the city of Jerusalem. During the year 2018, the Israeli occupation approved the building permits for 5,820 settlement units, in addition to the wall of expansion and annexation that surrounds the city of Jerusalem with the length of 93 km isolating about 84 km2 of the area of Jerusalem Governorate, while the incomplete part of the wall which is about 46 km will isolate about 68 km2 of the area of Jerusalem governorate. The Israeli occupation demolished 215 buildings in the Jerusalem governorate, leading to the forced displacement of 217 people, including 110 children.

Demolish of Housing Units and Establishments
The violations of the Israeli occupation against the Palestinians continue, in terms of demolishing buildings (housing units and establishments) and forced displacement of residents. Israeli occupation demolished 471 buildings in 2018 (houses and establishments), of which about 46% were in the city of Jerusalem with 215 demolitions. The demolished buildings were divided into 157 residential buildings and 314 establishments. In the year 2018, the Israeli occupation issued orders to demolish 546 buildings in the West Bank and Jerusalem, at a time when the needs of housing units for Palestinians increase. In figures and according to the data of the housing conditions survey 2015, about 61% of households in Palestine need to build new housing units over the next decade (one housing unit or more).


Israeli Violations against Palestinian
The number of Palestinian and Arab martyrs since the Nakba in 1948 up to the present day (inside and outside Palestine) has reached about 100,000 martyrs . The number of martyrs killed since the al Aqsa Intifada between September 29th 2000 and March 27th 2019 was 10,811.  The bloodiest year was 2014 with
2,240 Palestinian martyrs, 2,181 of them in Gaza Strip. The number of Palestinian martyrs reached 312 persons during the year 2018, out of whom 57 children and 3 women, while the number of wounded Palestinians during the year 2018 reached about 29,600 persons. There are around 6,000 Palestinian detainees as end of 2018, of them, 54 women, and more than 250 children, while the number of cases of detention during the year 2018 amounted to about 6,500 cases, including 1,063 children and 140 women.


Sources:
1.Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2018: Israeli settlements in the West Bank, 2017. Ramallah- Palestine
2.Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2018: Tables of Land Use, 2017. Ramallah- Palestine
3.Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission 2019: Summary of the most Important Violations in Palestine, 2018. Ramallah- Palestine
4.Commission of Detainees and Ex-detainees Affairs, Annual Report, 2018.
5.Abdullah Al-Hourani Center for Studies and Documentation, Israeli violations 2018, Ramallah- 2019.