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 repor , that the recent Israeli attacks in the Borqa village near Ramallah opened to a wider scale the file of Jewish terrorism that takes settlements and outposts as safe place under the noses and eyes of both the political and the army leaderships in the occupying power. On August 4th, the armed settlers stormed the village bringing with them a number of livestock, which means they intend to seize lands of the village to establish a ‘pastoral settlement’ knowing that the settlers came from the ‘Oz Zion and ‘Ramat Migron’ outposts. Residents of the village defended their lands, which resulted in the killing of Qusay Jamal Ma’atan, 19 by a terrorist settler named Elisha Bard.
The stance in the occupying State, was divided on the terrorist practices of the ‘Youth Hills’ and Pay the Price’, where the PM Netanyahu kept silent, while Smotrich, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of Defense went to freeze the allocations of Arab local authorities inside the Green Line and the allocations of higher education in educational institutions in East Jerusalem, and Itamar Ben Gvir adopted their criminal acts describing the Palestinians as rioters, who stoned the innocent settlers, and they responded by pulling the trigger. Not only that, but he demanded the release of the terrorists who had been arrested, and called for awarding them with a ‘Medal of Honor’. Among the Zionist opposition, the army and the Shin Bet, the reactions were different, where. Benny Gantz, leader of the so-called ‘National Camp’, described the event as dangerous Jewish national terrorism and added, we are before a dangerous Jewish national terrorism i.e. burning houses and vehicles, shooting and many incidents, and what happened in Borqa is very dangerous, and in fact there are members of the government coalition support such extremists, and that is a disgrace that won’t be erased and poses a threat to our image and our security.
Clockwise did leader of the opposition, YairLapid, the command of the central region in the West Bank and in the Shin Bet. However, what is striking about the position of all of them is the framework in which the image of this Jewish terrorism was placed in Borqa, as in other towns and villages of the Palestinian countryside, at the hands of organizations that the occupying state, with its three legislative, executive and judicial powers, refuses to classify as terrorist organizations. Such terrorist acts are not rejected in principle, but in general they are rejected because they pose a ‘danger’ on our image and on our nation in front of American public opinion in particular and international opinion in general.
But Elisha Bard, one of the ‘hill bullies’ leaders’ and a dangerous activist, who served as an official in the Jewish Power Party led by the fascist Itamar Ben Gvir, and worked as director of the office of the Knesset member of Ben Gvir’s party, and the extremist Limor Son HarMelech, who also joint Ben Ghafir as she defended his crime in front of the media, then left and moved to field work, leading the bullies of the hilltop youth in their attacks on the Palestinians, their lands, and their property, he lives in the outpost of Ramat Migron and has participated in many attacks against Palestinians in recent times, and the right-wing Channel 14 ranked him as one of the 75 most promising young men in Israel.For those outposts a long terrorist record, not only in Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, but also in various governorates in the West Bank, examples but not limited to in this context, in June 2022, a group of hilltop bullies stormed private lands belonging to residents of the village of Iskaka, in the Salfeet Governorate, and began cleaning the land in preparation for the establishment of a settlement outpost. When the residents of the village tried to expel them, one of the settlers stabbed the Palestinian citizen, Ali Harb, 27 years old, to death, in Feb. 2023, a group of these terrorists from the Yair farm arrived at a construction site in the village of QarawatBani Hassan, and attacked the workers. Residents confronted the terrorists and threw stones at them, where MithqalRayan, 27, was shot and killed in the head from a distance of 30 meters.
Inlight of the wide spread of weapons among settlers, the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir called last June to increase the number of Israeli citizens who are allowed to obtain a license to carry weapons, including for women in the settlements, knowing that about 150,000 weapons in their hands in 2021, the number increased under the current government under pressure incitement from the Minister of Finance and the Minister in the Ministry of the Army, BezalelSmotrich, and the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, to 165 in the middle of this year.
The % of those who have license to carry weapons among Israelis in general and Jewish women in particular, comes in light of the alleged lack of security and the escalation of Palestinian resistance, especially in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, increased by 88% since the beginning of the current year 2023, noting that nearly half of the women who have been armed live in settlements in the occupied West Bank.
According to the available information, since the term of the current fascist government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, 510 women have obtained licenses to carry weapons, compared to 270 women who obtained that in the same period of the year 2022, and that among the 510 women who obtained licenses to carry weapons, 42% live in settlements in the West Bank.
This year 2023 recorded an unprecedented momentum in the construction of illegal outposts, just like settlements in general. Phenomenonof the spread of settlement outposts began after Ariel Sharon, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure in Netanyahu’s first government called on extremist settlers to disturb the Palestinian hills and heights, as he said at the time, ‘Everyone must move and grab more hills and expand the area. Everything that is controlled will be in our hands; otherwise it will be in their hands i.e. the Palestinians.’ This was a green light for the establishment of an extremist terrorist organization that became known as Youth, until the year 2015, its number according to the estimates of the National Bureau for the Defending the Land was about 116 settlement outposts, including 40 outposts in the Nablus Governorate, 25 in the Ramallah and Al-BirehGovernorate, 15 in the Jerusalem Governorate, 20 in the Bethlehem Governorate, 22 in the Hebron Governorate, while the rest were scattered over the various governorates in the West Bank, in 2022, the number exceeded 200 settlement outposts, with a focus on the aforementioned governorates.
Moreover, the occupation’s Civil Administration directed by the fascist right-wing government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, began to legitimize a number of them, from GivatArnon, GivatHarel, GivatHaroeya, Homesh, and Avitar in the Nablus to Wavigil, Ashhal and BaniKedem, where a Knesset member from the ‘religious Zionism’ party resides. Extremist SimchaRotman, Chairman of the Constitution, Law and Judiciary Committee in the Knesset, in the Hebron Governorate, and Malachi Hashalom on the lands of Al Mughayer village east of Ramallah, BeitHajla in Jericho, Mitzpe Yehuda in Jerusalem, and Sde Boaz in the Bethlehem Governorate, out of 77 settlement outposts, where the National Security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir demanded to legilize them.
Since the beginning of the year, 22 settlements that were previously considered illegal outposts have been legalized. During the firsts 7 months of this year, a greater number of outposts were legalized by occupation, compared to all previous years, under intense pressure from the Minister of Settlements in the Ministry of Army, BezalelSmotrich, and the Minister of National Security. Itamar Ben Gvir. Four of the 22 settlements approved by the current government have also received retroactive planning permits from the Civil Administration in the West Bank, after illegal construction had already taken place.
Those outposts are distributed over large areas of lands classified as C between the existing settlements and what is known as pastoral outposts, which are now described as the largest manifestation of ongoing settlement activity in the mountains and hills of the West Bank, they are invented by settlers to seize areas C. There is a simple principle behind it: a few settlers gathered on a lot of land, securing the residence of a family or a group of young men in a strategic place, grazing sheep, and setting boundaries for those lands. In fact, there is no exact number of these pastoral settlement farms, but are estimated at scores, and because of them, confrontations took place between settlers and Palestinians.
The policy of establishing settlement outposts goes hand in hand with a policy of ethnic cleansing in areas C in the West Bank, especially after Smotrich took over the settlement file at the Civil Administration. According to data presented by this administration in the last session of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee at the Knesset, it is clear that the Occupation Authorities rejected 95% of building permit files in these areas, and over the past 20 years, the average grant of building permits was less than 10 permits per year in an area where 300,000 Palestinian citizens live., at a time when the army authorities demolished about 800 Palestinian homes and establishments, compared to about 88 in the outposts surrounding the settlements, between 2022 – 2023.
The ethnic cleansing policy practiced by the Occupation Authorities is concentrated on the areas of Bedouin communities, using the Jewish terrorist organizations of the ‘Hill Youth’ and the ‘Pay the Price’ as a major tools. During the past week, the Qaboun Bedouin community to the east of Ramallah was forced to leave their homes as happened with the Bedouin community in EinSamia a few weeks ago, a Bedouin community in Al-Ma’rajat, and another in MasaferYatta, which means the fourth Palestinian community to be displaced due to attacks and repeated threats from the settlers.
The Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the UN has indicated that the Palestinians were subjected during the first 6 months of the year 2023, to about 600 attacks at the hands of settlers, which resulted in casualties among them or damage to their property, or both. The displacement of about 400 Palestinians including 224 children and 175 women, throughout 2022 and the first half of 2023.
As for infrastructure that serves the settler movement, the far-right Likud Minister of Transportation is pressing for accelerating the completion of a number of bypass roads, which she considers a top priority for both the ministry and the government. In this regard, her ministry has completed 7 projects related to settlement streets, with a total investment of NIS 64.2 million, and its ministry is working on implementing 12 projects with a total investment of NIS 164.2 million, besides 11 settlement projects under planning at a cost of NIS 570 million.
Regev believes that her ministry is concerned with to complete more settlement bypass roads a cross the West Bank from north to south, with a budget exceeding one and a half billion dollars. Among the roads that are being vigorously completed is the Hawara bypass road, which is considered the most important for protecting settlers and securing their movement alongside the intersection of the ‘British Police’ and ‘Shaer Binyamin’, within Road 60, which the ministry plans to operate in early 2024.
In addition to the Al-Aroub bypass road from Jerusalem to Hebron, reaching the ‘KiryatArba settlement’ and another bypass road around the western town of Laban at a cost of NIS 120 million, according to what was agreed upon by MiriRegeb with Yossi Dagan, head of the settlement council in the northern West Bank.
She described what is happening as transportation revolution on the settlers’ roads in the West Bank, and confirms that she and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of Army, BezalelSmotrich, have agreed to allocate a budget exceeding NIS 6 billion to develop the settlement road network in the West Bank, especially those that provide settlers rapid movement without the need to pass through residential areas inhabited by Palestinians
The Palestinian Jordan Valley and Jerusalem remain among the priorities of the colonial settlement policy of the far-right government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. It is a government that plans, implements, and provides all means available to organizations, associations, and settlement movements, in a clear effort. Women’s Movements among the settlers also play a role, as they receive support and encouragement from the government and the settlement councils. Women calling themselves the ‘Sovereignty Movement’ work side by side with the government and the Settlement Council to establish settlement projects in the Palestinian Jordan Valley.
Theyalso calls for imposing Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and accelerating the establishment of settlement projects that include a hotel complex in the northern part of the Dead Sea and an international airport under Israeli sovereignty allowing Palestinians in the West Bank to use it to travel abroad instead of heading to Jordan, while keeping the roads leading to the Karama crossing open. Besides transferring the administration of ‘Qasr al-Yahud’ from the Civil Administration to a commercial entity that develops the service provided for the better, in addition to establishing another tourist city near the Jordanian border, which will be a meeting point for businessmen from Israel, Jordan and the Gulf countries, and it will be tax-exempted, as is the case in Eilat.
This plan is supported by scores of Knesset members belonging to the government coalition and the opposition. It was co-prepared by KobiElizar, who was an advisor on settlement affairs to four ministers of the occupation army, and lawyer Eran Ben-Ari, an expert in land and law in the West Bank. The plan’s authors believe that its implementation requires first imposing Israeli sovereignty over the Palestinian Jordan Valley, with the exception of the cities of Jericho, Auja and Tubas, and granting ‘residency in Israel’ to residents of towns and villages that fall within the framework of the project, similar to the Palestinians in Jerusalem.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Demolishing tents and wooden poles erected in the Abbasiya Neighborhood in the Silwantown, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and a land belonging to Jerusalemite Khaled Al-Zeer under the pretext of building without a permit. Injuring 3 young men from Al-Thawri neighborhood in the occupied city of Jerusalem during an attack by settlers in a public park in the occupied city.
Hebron:
- Attacking farmers and residents of the village of Al-Tawana in MasaferYatta, south of Hebron, and destroyed their crops under the protection of the occupation forces.
- Confiscating building materials and an electric generator from the village of Janba in MasaferYatta for a citizen who was renovating a cave he owned with the aim of converting it into a residence for him.
- Halting work on repairing an electricity network in the Deirat area and seized a crane belonging to the village of KhalletMayeh.
Bethlehem:
- Running over the child, JabreelMoh’dSawarka, 4, near his house adjacent to the main street connected to the village of Kisan, east of Bethlehem, his condition was described as serious.
- Bulldozing lands near KissanVillagAdjacent to ‘IbiHanahel settlement’ for settlement purposes. Demolishing a drinking water network in Khallet Al-Hamr, southeast of the village.
Ramallah:
- Forcing 6 families from the Al-Qaboun Bedouin community east of Ramallah to leave their homes as a result of the attacks and the constant threat against them from the settlers, 36 people were forced to leave after they have been to evacuate during the 1948 Nakna .
- working in an ancient water well in the Sinjiltown with the aim of seizing it, where they established an umbrella and restoration works in a water well called ‘Ras Al-Aqayeb’ which is a natural archaeological well located in the Ras Al-Aqaba area north of the town on the old Nablus road known as Al-Laban curves that witnesses continuous attacks by settlers to terrorize farmers and expel them from their lands
Nablus:
- Notifying to demolish and halt of construction of 15 houses in the Yatmatown, south of Nablus, in addition to two notices to demolish two walls in agricultural lands under the pretext of being built on areas C.
Salfeet:
- Uprooting 20 olive saplings and bulldozed tens of dunums to build a new settlement road ‘400m long and 8 meters wide’, in the area called ‘Bdeirya’ in the Kafr-Diktown.
Jordan Valley:
- Forcing shepherds to leave the pastures in Khirbet al-Hamma in the northern Jordan Valley, and prevented them from entering pastoral lands.
- Attacking KhalletMakhoul area in the northern Jordan Valley, and destroyed parts of an animal pen,
- Seizing 2 vehicles in the ‘Al-Rawaq area’ near Al-Hadidiya in the northern Jordan Valley.
