30,000 march in New York City for Palestine’s Land Day: Stop genocide in Gaza!

Thirty thousand people demonstrated in New York City on March 30 to stop the genocide in Gaza. They marched from Manhattan’s Times Square to Washington Square Park.

March 30 is commemorated around the world by Palestinians and their supporters as Land Day. On that date in 1976, six unarmed Palestinians were killed and more than a hundred wounded by Zionist police.

The Palestinians were protesting the theft of nearly 5,000 acres of their land in Galilee. That’s 7.7 square miles or the size of Manhattan south of Central Park.

All of it was inside the “1948” borders of the Zionist state. The apartheid regime occupying Palestine was determined to kick out the indigenous Arab inhabitants and fill it with Zionist settlers. 

The Israeli prime minister at the time was the so-called peacemaker Yitzhak Rabin, who was later assassinated. During the first Intifada (Uprising), Rabin ordered Zionist occupation forces to break the arms of Palestinian children arrested for allegedly throwing rocks at invading soldiers. 

This year, people demonstrated on Land Day in dozens of cities across the United States and around the world. They protested the murder of 14,000 Palestinian children in Gaza with bombs supplied by Genocide Joe Biden.

Around 50 people were arrested in Philadelphia for blocking the I-76 Schuylkill expressway. The courageous action of blocking the Schuylkill was first carried out for Black Lives Matter.

The New York City action was organized by the Shut It Down for Palestine Coalition. It includes the Palestinian Youth Movement; PAL Al-Awda: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Jewish Voices for Peace; Party for Socialism and Liberation; and The People’s Forum.

After a rally with speakers in Times Square, people marched across 42nd Street to Fifth Avenue and then south to Washington Square in Greenwich Village. Block after block of protesters filled Fifth Avenue.

People chanted while accompanied by drums and horns. Many onlookers cheered on the march. A short rally at Washington Square Park encouraged people to keep fighting.

Palestine will win!