المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
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By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The National Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements ( nbprs ) stated in its latest weekly report , that in a provocative way to placate the settlers in order to face the internal shocks of the government coalition that lost the majority in the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made his first visit since he came to office, to the “Elkana” settlement, which is located on the lands of Palestinian citizens in Salfeet Governorate, to participate in the 45th anniversary of its establishment. Then, he visited the “Keda” settlement near Nablus, where scores of its settlers protested against the visit, demanding that he resign after accusing him of backtracking of sup[porting settlement plans. They held banners saying: “Bibi is better for the Jews .. Israel in Danger .. We want a Jew state .. Settlement is not onlt a slogan.”
Within this context, a wide settlement activity is expected to be initiated by settlement organizations that undertake the construction of outposts even outside the laws of the occupying state, taking advantage of the facilities on the one hand, and the policy of racial discrimination, which distinguishes between building and construction in the areas C in the West Bank. The Nahla Settlement Movement, which established the random outpost Avitar on Mount Sabih from the lands of Beita town, initiated a large meeting at the headquarters of the Regional Council of Settlements in the Ramallah area and north of occupied Jerusalem, in which about 400 activists participated in the settlements, during which announcing the Ten Eviatar scheme i.e. ten new outposts, simultaneously on next July 20.
Banners have recently spread throughout the West Bank calling for participation in this meeting, and home meetings have been held with the aim of recruiting settlers to implement the scheme. It is noteworthy that the outpost of Eviatar was established, last May, on lands belonging to the Palestinian villages of Beita, Qabalan, and Yatma, south of Nablus.
In Jerusalem, the settlement and Judaization projects continue with an intense effort from the occupation municipality, the government of Israel and the settlement organizations. The occupation municipality announced the confiscation of 82 dunums of lands of villages north of occupied Jerusalem in favor of building infrastructure for the extension of the light rail linking West Jerusalem with the city’s airport and the Qalandia Industrial Zone – Atarot, and the extension of infrastructure to the largest settlement gathering north of the occupied city.
This comes within the framework of a new scheme within a project that starts from the airport area Qalandia Street n. 45 passing through the industrial area – Atarot in the direction west of the village of Beit Hanina to the Freire School to the Shuafat lands and then south to Al-Quds Street in Ramallah, where the municipality works to build roads in the neighborhoods and villages of Jerusalem With the aim of isolating these villages from their lands, confiscating them and annexing them to the settlement projects intended to be implemented, the Atarot industrial zone scheme comes within the project of building a large settlement on the lands of Jerusalem Airport, whose runway was destroyed to form the new settlement a settlement barrier separating Jerusalem from its natural extension and Palestinian depth in the north.
In promoting this settlement project, the occupation municipality talks about allocating imaginary sums for the development of the Atarot industrial zone, where recently the opening ceremonies of some small projects in the region took place with the participation of senior municipal officials and its companies in the process of extensive modernization of the infrastructure in order to make the public space in the old industrial zone more attractive. After the occupation government approved on Nov. 24, 2021 a settlement project that includes the construction of about 11,000 settlement units, hotels, facilities and public parks, the expansion of the industrial zone to 1,243 dunums, as well as the establishment of commercial complexes along road no. 45 and the transformation of the main hall at the abandoned Jerusalem Airport into Tourist facility.
At the same time, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected 4 petitions submitted against a planned building plan on the cable car scheme in occupied Old Jerusalem, which connects the Mount of Olives – Jabal -Tur to Al-Buraq Square, and east and west Jerusalem in order to legitimize the scheme approved by the Subsidized Infrastructure Committee from the Israeli government. The court, which examined the file of the case and the petitions said that there is no room for judicial intervention in the way in which the institutions based on the plans for the construction of the cable car were selected.
In the Palestinian Valley, and in a brief declaration by the military government, the so-called ‘Civil Administration’ in the West Bank announced the establishment of a nature reserve – Wadi Maklak – south of Jericho, which starts from the village of Khan al-Ahmar towards the Dead Sea, and the area of the reserve is 22,000 donums. The military government renewed the order issued in 1981 under the Nature Protection Law n. 396 issued in 1969, which means preventing thousands of Palestinians from entering their lands, planting or reclaiming them in the future.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Forcing the Jerusalemite Faraj Dabash to demolish his house in the village of Sur Baher to avoid being fined for demolition costs on the pretext of building without a permit.
- Demolishing 2 commercial and agricultural facilities in the town of Beit Hanina, and the settlement associations, with the support of the occupation authorities, to seize the lands, an agricultural nursery was also bulldozed near Shuafat.
- Writing racist phrases on the walls of houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood calling for the killing of Arabs and others offensive to the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.
- Forcing a citizen to demolish his house in the town of Sur Baher under the pretext of building without a permit.
Ramallah:
- Attacking vehicles of citizens near the town of Turmusaya, which led to the smashing of their windows?
- Storming Karamah housing in Mazraa-Gharbiyye, west of Ramallah, and assaulted citizens and detained 12 workers for several hours.
Nablus:
- Bulldozing lands at the Al-Ross Al-Twal area south of the village of Jaloud, Al-Khafafeesh and Al-Habes areas” with the aim of expanding the two outposts at the expense of the citizens’ lands.
- Opening a settlement road in the lands of the southern region in the town of Qasra, southeast of the governorate.
- Firing live bullets in the courtyard of Akram Halloum Secondary School for Girls in Duma village, south of Nablus, causing panic among the students.
Qalqlia:
- Notification to demolish a mosque under construction in the southern “Arab al-Ramadin” community in the Qalqilya Governorate.
salfeet:
- A number of civilians suffocated as scores of settlers stormed Haris village, west of Salfeet. And breaking and chopping 50 olive trees from Yasuf village, east of Salfit
Tulkarm:
- Storming a land east of the Kafr-Labad village, seized a bulldozer owned by Saed Rajab, while his son was working on land reclamation, and moved it to the “Anab” settlement.
Jordan Valley:
- Seizing a wheat harvester in the Homsah area in the northern Jordan Valley.
- Demolishing a warehouse and a fence in the Sateh area of the village of Al-Dyouk Al-Tahta, north of the city of Jericho under the pretext of not having a license, and a park designated for selling the watermelon crop in the town of Tamoun, with an area of 30m2.
- A provocative media march in the village of Al-Jiftlik and threw stones at citizens’ vehicles, as a result of which Othman Al-Anouz and his 3-year-old daughter were injured.
