المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
Related Articles
By: Madeeha Al-A’raj:
The National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report that , according to the Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli Minister of National Security, the fascist Ben Gvir, has delivered last week a speech to his followers including former members of the terrorist movement ‘Kach’, where a biblical verse from the Book of Psalms was hanged behind on a sheet of cloth during his speech, which reads, ‘the righteous will have fruit. It is there is a God who judges on earth.’ Adding, ‘In order to raise the souls of the martyrs, our teacher and role models, Rabbi Meir Kahane, Rabbi Benjamin Zeev and Talia Kahane, and Dr. Baruch Goldstein, God will avenge their blood.’
He wrote under their names a verse from the Book of Joel in the Torah: ‘And I will avenge their blood, and I will not heal their killers, and I, the Lord, will dwell in Zion.’ During his speech, he described the killer Goldstein as ‘a hero, a saint, and a doctor who saved Jewish lives,’ calling him ‘Dr. Goldstein.’ Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud leaders and all the leaders of the coalition swallowed their tongues. What unites them with Ben Gvir is the continuation of expanding settlements in Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestinian territories since 1967 and does not end with spreading the spirit of hostility and hatred for any Palestinian things.
Within the context, the Israeli Ministry of Housing published tenders for the construction of 260 settlement units in the West Bank, including 156 settlement units in the ‘Kiryat Arba’” settlement,’ where ‘the tender provides discounted apartments for young couples and individuals qualified by the Ministry of Housing, and 60 settlement units in the ‘Adam settlement,’ located near the Palestinian Jaba village, which is surrounded by the apartheid wall from the western and northern sides, as well as 44 settlement units in the ‘Adam settlement’ in Ma’ale Efraim, near the Duma village in the Jordan Valley. Knowing that a previous tender published by the Ministry last March, where, the government and cabinet have decided as of February this year, to promote the construction of more than 7,300 units in settlements throughout the West Bank, and to legalize 10 outposts.
At the same time, the ‘Ateret Cohanim Settlement Association’ is promoting a plan to establish a new settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, calling it ‘Kedmat Zion’ in the area between Abu Dis and Ras al-Amud. This plan includes 384 housing units on an area of 79 dunums. It was recently presented to the Israeli Planning Office. No date has yet been set for discussing the plan, which was submitted by ‘Bohraim Ltd Co’, a company established by members of ‘Ateret Cohanim’ where ‘there are 5 Palestinian homes belonging to the Al-Qanbar family, on the land on which the new settlement is intended to be built.’ The plan is to demolish some of these houses. Knowing that the Association failed 20 years ago to promote the construction of a Jewish settlement in the area. It warned that the establishment of the settlement in that place would cut off communication between East Jerusalem and Abu Dis.
Once again, the Moshe Lion Municipality in the occupied Jerusalem brought the issue of the Al-Bustan neighborhood in the town of Silwan, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to the fore, after its crews stormed the neighborhood and distributed scores of demolition orders and took measurements of some buildings there, in addition to summoning dozens to meet the investigation unit in the municipality. Although dozens of Jerusalemite families in the neighborhood had previously received demolition orders for their homes, under the pretext of building without a permit, today the occupation municipality has redistributed the orders again, which increased the fears of the residents of demolishing their homes in the coming days.
The occupation courts and its municipality had refused to freeze the demolition orders of 116 homes in the neighborhood, which means that the demolitions have come under legal cover, and may be implemented at any time. The municipality had previously refused to postpone or freeze the demolition, and also rejected the engineering plans for the neighborhood. Al-Bustan Neighborhood is one of the closest to Al-Aqsa, it is only 300 meters away from its southern wall, and it extends over an area of 70 dunums, so the occupation targets it in order to displace its residents.
The case is the same with rest of the West Bank, a new Israeli plan to seize lands of the Sebastia town, north of the city of Nablus, and its antiquities, the Israeli government is scheduled to approve, next Sunday, a plan to steal the archaeological garden of Sebastia and seize it completely, as part of a proposal submitted by ministers and Knesset members to the government in Tel Aviv. It aims to allocate NIS 30 million under the pretext of restoring and developing the archaeological park in the town. The proposal calls for reopening the park to settlers permanently to be an attractive place. It also calls for increasing security around it, taking the necessary measures to preserve it, and strengthening roads and infrastructure that allow settlers to easily access it.
On the other hand, the occupation authorities deliberately pursue a policy of thirst against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank through the laws and arrangements of apartheid regimes that control the water sector, promoting and consolidating Jewish supremacy in the entire region from the river to the sea, thus creating huge gaps between settlers and among the Palestinian in water consumption, who suffer from chronic water distress through a systematic war that causes damage to the water resources of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in order to rob their water sources and lands, as the data indicate that the average daily water consumption of the Palestinians living in the West Bank is one-third of the average daily water consumption per Israeli capita, where the average daily consumption of water per capita is 247 liters, while the average consumption of a Palestinian in the West Bank is about 82 liters per capita per day, where, the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization is 100 liters per person per day, and the total amount of water consumed by Israelis is ten times the total amount consumed by Palestinians in the West Bank.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Demolishing a 6-storey residential building in Dahiyat Al-Salam area in Anata village, and handing 100s of demolition orders last April under the pretext of building without a permit.
- Preparing to hold the annual flags march in the Jerusalem city. The march is expected to start on Thursday, 18 May.
Hebron:
- Attacking citizens’ lands in Masafer Yatta and the Badia area, and the staff of the ‘Yesh Din’” organization was attacked because they filmed and documented their attacks.
- Constructing a road on the lands of the town of Beit Awa to connect an agricultural outpost with ‘Nujohot settlement.’
- Orders to vacate the old municipality building, which consists of 2 floors with an area of 205 m2, in preparation for its seizure and handing it over to the settlers.
Bethlehem:
- Bulldozing 150 dunums of land east of Kisan village, near the settlement of ‘Ibi Hanahel’, to build a settlement road.
- Demolishing a restaurant in Al-Walaja village under the pretext of not having a license.
Ramallah:
- Assaulting a man and his brother while they were plowing their land east of the Deir Jarir town, smashing their car windows, stealing land surveying devices, and another assault on a citizen in the Turmusaya plain.
- Confronting a settler, who seized a piece of land in the ‘Sheikh Ammar’ area, and the people succeeded in expelling him from the place.
Nablus:
- Attacking citizens while they were working on their lands in Burqa village, north of Nablus, and severely beat them, then they were taken to Rafidia Governmental Hospital in Nablus, and another citizen east of Aqraba villag, and beat him while he was grazing sheep, stole 14 sheep from him, and cut down 260 trees west of the village.
- Attacking farmers in the Sarara area, Qaryut, and preventing them from plowing their 80 dunums.
- Destroying a fence surrounding a land in the of Burqa town, and uprooting and stealing 750 olive seedlings
- Destroying water tanks and an agricultural room, and uprooted seedlings in Sebastia.
Jordan Valley:
- Orders to remove a residential tent, a solar power unit, a bathroom, and a water tank in Khirbet al-Deir, and to stop work on an agricultural barracks of 150m2, in addition to an order to stop construction for a 3-story house in the village of Bardala, and to stop construction for a house under construction of an area of 133 m2 in the Kardala village, and to stop construction I 11 houses in Khallet Al-Foula area in Al-Jiftlik, under the pretext of not having a permit.
