On Mother’s Day & the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination -Wednesday, March 21st- Palestinians from the village of Umm Salamuna and neighboring villages near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank protested against the illegal annexation wall Israel is building on their land.
On Mother’s Day & the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination -Wednesday, March 21st- Palestinians from the village of Umm Salamuna and neighboring villages near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank protested against the illegal annexation wall Israel is building on their land.
The protestors targeted the bulldozers that were razing their land for the construction of the Wall. In honor of Mother’s Day, Palestinian and international women marched in solidarity at the front lines of the demonstration.
Prior to the march, villagers held a rally and blocked an Israeli settler road to protest the Wall which will annex 700 dunums (175 acres) of their land to the nearby Israeli settlement of Efrat. In addition it will destroy 270 dunums (70 acres) of planted fields.
The villagers marched from the village to the Wall and tried to stop the bulldozers from destroying the land. Local representatives gave speeches about the effects of the destruction of their fields, trees, and land.
The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on March 21st. It was first established in 1966, following a tragic event in South Africa when young black students were massacred at the hands of the South African Apartheid police, as the students were peacefully protesting against apartheid laws of the South African minority government.
Proclaiming the International Day, the United Nations General Assembly called upon the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination. In August 2001, an anti-racism conference held in Durban in South Africa was boycotted by Israel and the United States because the forum officially regarded Zionism as racism.
