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Hundreds of Arab Israelis mark Land Day

01 April 2012 00:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. About 500 Arab Israelis demonstrated on Saturday in Jaffa near Tel Aviv to mark Land Day held in memory of six members of their community killed in 1976, an AFP photographer reported, APA reports quoting AFP.

The demonstration, organised by the Monitoring Committee of Arab Israelis, was held without any incident.

On Friday, a Palestinian was killed and more than 50 were wounded by Israeli forces during protests by thousands of people in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Thousands of Arab Israelis marched on Friday in Deir Hanna, waving Palestinian flags and photos of the six protesters killed in 1976.

The six died at the hands of the Israeli army and police during a demonstration against land confiscations.

The Arab Israeli community is composed of descendants of the 160,000 Palestinians who remained on their land after Israel’s creation in 1948, and now numbers around 1.2 million, or nearly 20 percent of the population.

They say they suffer from discrimination, particularly in employment, education and public funding