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 scores of terrorist settlers in the ‘agricultural and pastoral outposts’ in the occupied West Bank are encouraged by the extremist Israeli Minister of National Security, Ben Gvir, to carry all kind of weapons, claiming that they need to protect ‘their farms and families’ from the danger of attacks.
This coincided with PM Netanyahu call last week to speed up the procedures for allowing the Israelis to possess weapons, knowing that the settlers have sent a letter to him stating that there is a necessary and urgent need to change the policy followed with the owners of settlement farms in the West Bank, and to allow them without exception to carry personal weapons for the purpose of ensuring their security and the security of their families.
Knowing that, those settlers are considered the spearhead of seizing 1000s of Palestinian dunums through establishing ‘farms and barns’ in rural lands of the West Bank, especially around remote villages, as in the south of Hebron and the northern Jordan Valley and Northern Governorates.
On the other hand, once the US Secretary of State, Blinken left the region, the Occupation Authorities approved 2 plans to build 1,200 settlement units in 2 settlement built on the Jerusalem Neighborhoods’ lands, which indicates US tacit approval after the Donald Trump Administration recognized Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.
The plans targeted Al-Quds Al-Thawry Street – Abu Tor, with 1,70 settlement units, which will combine commercial, employment and public buildings areas, while at the Junction of Jerusalem-Hebron Streets in the ‘Arnona settlement’, it includes 160 settlement units, which will be built in a 30-storey tower and a 10-storey building, at a time when it issued a decision to seize more than 500 dunums between the towns of Hizma and Jaba, northeast of Jerusalem.
Belonging to citizens of the two towns under the pretext of expanding the main street between Hizma and Jaba villages, which can only be interpreted within the context of a green light received by the Occupation Authorities from the American Minister and the team, which he left behind in occupied Jerusalem to continue pressure on the Palestinian side to accept the offers.
Last week, the issue of demolishing the village of Al-Khan Al-Ahmar and displacing its residents came to the fore, as hundreds of citizens carried out solidarity campaigns with the residents of the Bedouin village to prevent its demolition. In light of this, and for fear of wide regional and international reactions, the occupation government again asked the Supreme Court of Occupation to postpone its response regarding the displacement of the village of Khan al-Ahmar, east of occupied Jerusalem, until the beginning of next June.
Within the context of providing appropriate conditions for its demolition, the National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlement accused Israel of not canceling the eviction decision, but rather postponed it temporarily until the political and international conditions for implementing the demolition plan becomes mature, and that this dangerous project is followed by a process of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian presence in all Bedouin communities.
So, resistance in Khan al-Ahmar must be continued to save the presence in the rest of the neighboring Palestinian areas. According to the occupation government’s request, the political level still insists on its opinion that the rule of law requires the implementation of demolition orders, but crystallizing the detailed response to the statement in this very sensitive and complex case justifies giving a deadline to the position of it in order to complete the plan.
Commenting on the policy of demolishing Palestinian homes and facilities, Human Rights Watch said that the recent measures of the Occupation Authorities to close the homes of two Palestinian families in occupied Jerusalem is a collective punishment i.e. a ‘war crime,’ and that the policies adopted by the Israeli Authorities to suppress the Palestinians, coupled with inhumane acts as part of a policy to preserve the domination of Israeli Jews over the Palestinians, it also amount to a war crime, besides the two crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
For its part, the Amnesty International issued a statement showed that the Israeli forces have killed nearly 220 Palestinians, including 35 in Jan. 2023, noted that the unlawful killings help maintain the Israeli apartheid regime, and constitute crimes against humanity, as do other grave and ongoing violations committed by the Israeli authorities, such as administrative detention and forcible transfer under the Apartheid Regime.
The Israeli Authorities controls every aspect of the lives of the Palestinians, subject them to oppression and unfair discrimination on a daily basis through the fragmentation of the regions, and the legal segregation, where the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are isolated into separate enclaves, with those living in the Gaza Strip cut off from the rest of the world through the Israeli illegal blockade, which has caused a humanitarian crisis that is a form of collective punishment.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Demolishing a two-storey house in the town of Jabal Mukaber under the pretext of being built without a permit, and they are preparing to demolish 14 other Palestinian homes.
- Demolishing a commercial facility and a retaining wall in Silwan, and leveled land in Jabal al-Mukaber, and a commercial facility under construction in the Wadi al-Hummus Neighborhood in Sur Baher, and a wooden room in the Abbasiya Neighborhood under the pretext of being built without a permit.
- Storming the Church of Prison of Christ in the Old City, and destroyed its contents.
- A call by the alleged ‘Temple Mount Organization’ to storm the bAl-Aqsa Mosque on 6th of this month on the occasion of the so-called Jewish ‘Passover’.
Hebron:
- Attacking citizens’ homes in Sada al-Tha’la, Masafer Yatta, and firing live bullets in the vicinity of the houses, chanted racist phrases and threatened to kill Palestinians and Arabs.
- Notifications to stop work in two residential rooms in the village of Birin in Al-Masafer.
- Beating children near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, and in the Badia area, as well as the Zuwaidin community to the east of Yatta, the occupation authorities notified the demolition of four residences and two agricultural facilities
- Assaulting a young man in Masafer Yatta. Settlers attacked citizens and their properties east, west, north and south of Hebron, and threw stones at them, causing damage to several vehicles.
Ramalah:
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles near the village of Al-Taybeh, east of Ramallah, with stones, and burning a house and a vehicle in the town of Turmusaya northeast of Ramallah, and closing Al-Sahel Street in the town, and burnt a vehicle and wrote racist slogans in Sinjil town, and punctured 3 vehicles,
- Writing racist slogans on citizens’ homes in Al-Bireh.
Jordan Valley:
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles with stones at Ein-Hilweh Junction in the northern Jordan Valley.
- Demolishing vegetable stalls near the entrance to the villages of Ein Al-Bayda and Bardala.
- Tryng to burn a house after they stormed the village of Al-Auja, north of Jericho.
- Notifying several families from Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa to evict their tents under the pretext of conducting military training in the area.
- Fencing more pastoral areas in the northern Jordan Valley estimated at 1080 dunums.
- Preventing Shepherds from entering vast areas of pastoral lands to graze their livestock, after settlers seized them.
