[18] While the political movement Al-Ard ("The Land") was active for about a decade, it was declared illegal in 1964, and the most notable antigovernment occasions otherwise were the May Day protests staged annually by the Communist party.

[20] According to Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the land was to be used to construct "[...] eight Jewish industrial villages, in implementation of the so-called Galilee Development Plan of 1975.

In hailing this plan, the Ministry of Agriculture openly declared that its primary purpose was to alter the demographic nature of Galilee in order to create a Jewish majority in the area.

"[4][21] Orly Helpern of The Jerusalem Post writes that the lands were confiscated by the government for security purposes, and that they were subsequently used to build a military training camp, as well as new Jewish settlements.

"[23] The government decision to confiscate the land was accompanied by the declaration of a curfew to be imposed on the villages of Sakhnin, Arraba, Deir Hanna, Tur'an, Tamra, and Kabul, effective from 5 p.m. on March 29, 1976.

[4] Local Arab leaders from the Rakah party, such as Tawfiq Ziad, who also served as the mayor of Nazareth, responded by calling for a day of general strikes and protests against the confiscation of lands to be held on March 30.

[26] The threats were not effective, however, and many teachers led their students out of the classrooms to join the general strike and marches that took place throughout the Arab towns in Israel, from the Galilee in the north to the Negev in south.

[4] Nahla Abdo and Ronit Lentin write that three of the dead were women, and that, "the army was allowed to drive armoured vehicles and tanks along the unpaved roads of various villages of the Galilee.

"[30] Yosef Goell, writing in The Jerusalem Post, says that, "What actually set off the rioting that led to the deaths was a wild attack by hundreds of inflamed young Arabs on an unsuspecting IDF convoy driving on the road by the villages of Sakhnin, Arrabe and Deir Hanna.

[32] Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal write that Land Day differed from the Kafr Qasim massacre in that the Palestinians in Israel exhibited a "[...] daring confidence and political awareness totally lacking in 1956; this time Arab citizens were not passive and submissive.

"[33] During the Land Day events, a new sense of national pride, together with anger toward the state and police and sorrow over the dead protesters, developed among the Arab community in Israel.

Conversely, Abnaa al-Balad's commitment to the establishment a single democratic Palestine saw the issues of land, equality, the refugees and the occupation as "a comprehensive, integral and indivisible whole.

"[23] While Rakah remained committed to a two-state solution, it charted a delicate balance, expressing a Palestinian identity more clearly so as to be more in tune with community sentiment.

All of the newspapers examined, whatever their ideological differences, minimized the causes, emphasizing instead two main themes: portraying the demonstrations as the work of a marginal and unrepresentative minority and describing them as a potential threat to state security and law and order.

Daniel Bar-Tal and Yona Teichman write: "Of special importance is the finding that all the newspapers delegitimized the participants, as communists, nationalists, extremists, agitators, inciters, enemies or violent people.

"[34] Bar-Tal and Teichman also cite a 2000 study by professors Gadi Wolfsfeld, Eli Avraham and Issam Aburaiya that analyzed coverage by Haaretz and Yediot Aharonot of the annual commemorations between 1977 and 1997 and found that reports prior to the event each year also relied heavily on news items from the police and military sources.

Muhammad Zidan, Head of the Arab Higher Followup Committee, was among those wounded in the clashes, and a 72-year-old woman from Sakhnin was reported to have died in the hospital after injuries sustained from tear gas inhalation.

[32] A 2006 report in The Jerusalem Post states that in annual commemorations of the day by Arab citizens today, Israeli security forces are on alert but do not interfere in the protests.

[37] During demonstrations in the West Bank, four Palestinians were killed and 36 wounded in Nablus when Israeli forces used live ammunition against protesters throwing stones and molotov cocktails.

"[38] The 2005 Land Day commemorations were dedicated to the plight of the unrecognized villages in the Negev, where organizers said 80,000 Arab citizens live without access to basic amenities and 30,000 homes have received demolition orders.

For example, the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights issued a press release for Land Day 2006, calling for "boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel" and an end to "racial discrimination, occupation, and colonization.

[42] Also in 2009, thousands of Arab citizens, some carrying Palestinian flags, marched through the towns of Arrabe and Sakhnin, under the banner, "We are all united under Israeli fascism and racism."

[43] Ynet reported that protests by Palestinians were planned in locations worldwide, including the US, Canada, Germany, Finland, France and Belgium, and that the World Social Forum (WSF) announced the launching of a campaign calling on all of its affiliates to excommunicate Israel.