🍉 VanGran4Pal Community Newsletter (March 27, 2026)
Neighbours and friends,
As we approach Yom Al Ard (Land Day) on March 30th, we would love for our readers to check out an important briefing from our community member and newsletter contributor Federica. The briefing summarizes the latest developments across Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, showing how escalating violence across Palestine is converging toward a decisive – and potentially irreversible – moment for Palestinian self-determination.
Ultimately, it is a call to action for all of us to hold governments, corporations, and institutions accountable and to push for meaningful justice – before it is too late. On its 50th anniversary, Land Day is not just remembrance, but a warning.
Click here to read the briefing, and scroll down for actions, events, a book club recommendation and community spotlight.
Actions you can take
Condemn Israel’s genocide in Lebanon
Having already killed more than a thousand Lebanese people, Israel is seeking to permanently depopulate a large swath of southern Lebanon.
Please email foreign minister Anand to denounce Israel’s genocide in Lebanon and to call on Ottawa to stop undercutting Lebanon’s legitimate resistance to the ‘Greater Israel’ project.
Urgent: Stop Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank
From Just Peace Advocates: As the US/Israeli aggression on Iran, the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Lebanon, and the ongoing attacks and stopping of humanitarian aid to Gaza continue, so does the horrific rampaging and escalating violence of Israeli settlers and the occupation forces across the West Bank.
It is time for Canada to not just denounce this violence and ethnic cleansing but take concrete actions to hold the apartheid-state accountable.
Act, by sending a letter to foreign affairs minister Anand demanding immediate and tangible action.
Upcoming Events
The Land Remembers - Yom Al Ard | March 28
Rally & March
Date & Location
📅 March 28, 2026
⏰ 2:00 - 4:00 PM
📍Grandview Park
About
Join us to commemorate Yom Al Ard (Land Day), marking the 50th year since this historic event. On March 30, 1976 the Zionist government moved to make an unprecedented land grab which led to an eruption of protests and Palestinian resistance efforts.
Fifty years later, not much has changed - in fact, the Zionist entity has renewed its efforts with an ongoing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing campaigns across all of Occupied Palestine.
Join us to reject the Western-backed Zionist terror on Palestinians (and the entire SWANA region) and to ground ourselves in community, focusing on land resistance from Turtle Island to Palestine.
Living Words: Multilingual Poetry event commemorating land and people through stories | March 30
Date & Location
📅 March 30, 2026
⏰ 5:45 - 8:30 PM
📍Grandview Church (1803 East 1st Ave, Vancouver, BC)
About
Join Weaving Our Worlds for an evening of multi-lingual poetry and cultural expression centering on the theme of land and resistance. This will be an evening of intimate poetry and storytelling featuring poets, spoken-word artists and comrades sharing in different language traditions without translation or adaptation into the colonial English language. Oral tradition, in preserving cultural and historical knowledge through generations, has been at the heart of many resistance struggles around the world.
Centering the Palestinian struggle for land and liberation, we invite you to explore the interrelation of our many experiences despite the oppression that threatens to disembody us from the land and people. We hope the poetry shared and time spent together serve as a balm in the face of raging fascism and imperialism.
This event commemorates Yom Al Ard يَوْم اَلْأَرْض (Palestinian Land Day). March 30th marks the anniversary of the 1976 killings of several Palestinians protesting Israel’s expropriation of land near Sakhnin in Galilee. This day not only commemorates the sumud of Palestinians but also the importance of the land to the survival of the Palestinian people and cultural heritage. The land knows no borders, and land connects us all.
This is a fundraiser with a suggested donation of $20-40+ and NOTAFLOF. All funds to Gaza.
Apartheid Free Communities & the Role of the University in Israel’s Genocide | April 1
Date & Location
📅 April 1, 2026
⏰ 6:30 PM
📍Frederic Wood Theatre (6354 Crescent Rd, Vancouver)
About
Join us for a panel discussion addressing the urgent need for UBC to sever institutional ties with Israeli universities that uphold the apartheid regime in Palestine and the importance of advocating for the Apartheid Free Communities movement. Doors open at 6pm and the event starts at 6:30pm.
This event features author Gabor Maté, anthropologist Maya Wind, and activist Jeeda Musleh in a panel moderated by scholar Jasbir Puar.
Notes from Palestine: Justice and Collective Healing | April 10
Date & Location
📅 April 10, 2026
⏰ Doors 6:30 PM
📍The Norm Theatre (UBC)
About
As the genocide and violence in Palestine continues and global attention shifts, our responsibility to stand in solidarity remains. Join us to hear this conversation with Dr. Samah Jabr on mental health lessons from Palestine: Solidarity, Responsibility, and Practice in Contexts of Political Violence.
Dr. Samah Jabr @drsamahjabr is a Palestinian psychiatrist serving communities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and former Head of the Mental Health Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health. She is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University and serves on the Scientific Committee of the Global Initiative Against Impunity for International Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations. She consults internationally on mental health program development, with a focus on prisoners’ rights, suicide prevention, and historical trauma. For over two decades, she has advocated for the mental health and dignity of Palestinians, particularly survivors of torture and trauma. She is the author of several books, including Beyond the Frontlines, Sumud, Sumud in Times of Genocide, The Time of Genocide, and her latest, Radiance in Pain and Resilience.
Dr. Jabr will be joined by Caroline Abedrabboh, a local Palestinian health care worker, as well as Muhammad Sultan, a member of BC Physicians Against Genocide.
We are honored to hear the opening remarks by Jada-Gabrielle Pape (she/her). Jada is Coast Salish belonging to the Snuneymuxw and WSANEC nations. She is a mom, auntie, sister and daughter. Jada is a painter, Coast Salish weaver, bead worker, canoe puller, drummer and singer and has committed her life to humbly uplifting the teachings of her people. Jada finds hope in The Resistance and is unwavering in her solidarity with Palestine. She is currently fundraising to complete a feature length documentary called From the Salish Sea to Palestine: kindling solidarity and stories of shared resistance. Read more about Jada’s work at @drawingwisdom_
Community Spotlight
Visit local Syrian restaurant Tayybeh at their new location
If you're wondering where to go for your next dine-out experience or perhaps need catering for an event, check out beloved local Syrian restaurant Tayybeh at its new location in Mt Pleasant at 151 W Broadway.
About Tayybeh: Starting late 2015, tens of thousands of Syrian persons and families who had been uprooted from their homes began arriving in Canada to settle and begin new lives. With many coming to British Columbia. In a short five years, Tayybeh has grown by leaps and bounds, employing numerous women who have become notable chefs in the city's culinary scene. Tayybeh's catering service is now one of Vancouver's most recognized and celebrated providers of premium Middle Eastern fare at office lunches, banquets, conferences, receptions, social events, weddings, and other functions.
Tayybeh's mission is to continue to empower newcomer women and offer opportunities for employment, financial independence and social integration by offering and highlighting their delicious and authentic local food.
Book Club
How Sanctions Work by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani and Ali Vaez
Community member and newsletter contributor Federica is recommending How Sanctions Work for this week's book club. This book is an insightful, urgent analysis of how economic sanctions really work, based on the most sanctioned country in the world: Iran. Comprehensive sanctions are meant to induce uprisings or pressures to change the behavior of the ruling establishment, or to weaken its hold on power. But, after four decades, the case of Iran shows the opposite to be true: sanctions have strengthened the Iranian state, impoverished its population, increased state repression and corruption, and escalated Iran's military posture toward the U.S. and its allies in the region. Instead of offering an 'alternative to war,' sanctions have become a major contributor to it. This book will open your eyes to how necessary it is to understand how sanctions really work.