المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
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By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The national Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that the aggressive war waged by the Israeli Occupation Authorities is not only a war of genocide, displacement of the people of the Gaza Strip, and ‘ironing awareness’ of the people in the West Bank, in which martyrs fall every day and mass arrest campaigns continue, but also a war with multiple fields, as it extends to include destructive settlement activities carried out by settlers to expand the areas of settlement influence with the new settlement outposts, and to build roads linking the existing ones.
Suchactivities led by Religious Zionist Parties that exploit the conditions of war to fully subjugate the so-called ‘Civil Administration’ and the Occupation Police operating in the occupied West Bank and turn them into obedient tools in the hands of the settlers, and impose a complete political agenda on their activities, as the Minister of Finance and Settlement at the Ministry of the Army, Smotrich, and Minister of National Security,Itamar Ben Gvirwant, knowing that the Palestinians have never bet on the role of either the Civil Administration, the Police and the so-called Law Enforcement Apparatus to protect them from settlement and/or settlers’ violence.
In the West Bank, both Smotrich and Ben Gvir lead what independent or semi-independent Israeli political, academic circles and research centers call ‘organized violence’ practiced by herds of settlers with the fully supported by the Occupation Army and Police units. Thus, the settlers seize the lands of Palestinian citizens, expel Bedouin and herding communities from their areas and settlements, establish new settlement outposts and build roads to connect them under ‘organized violence’.
Here the shepherds were expelled, and a road was constructed on the Palestinian lands, including private ones, in work that has clearly recently accelerated, as settlers are taking advantage of the war conditions in several areas to carry out the task. They consider every road they build a security necessity, and every control of land or practice of terrorism against the Palestinians on their farms and fields is self-defense from threats. All of this is done with almost absolute support from the government after the “Civil Administration” was completely subjugated to the settlers’ authority.
According to Israeli research centers, and civil society organizations that monitor settlement in the West Bank, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights ‘B’Tselem’ or the ‘KeremNaboth’ Association, “organized violence” is being accelerated through threatening the Palestinian farmers, and a expanding of the construction of illegal roads. As for the “Civil Administration,” according to these centers and organizations, it “stands helpless in the face of such thugs it also in normal times, finds it difficult to stop the violent “Hilltop Youth” and other settlers. Now, it seems it has even lost its partial control as settlers started to ignore it.
The ‘KeremNabot Association’ that follows up Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank, has recently published a road in and near the WadiQana NaturalReserve that was built by settlers. The Association talked here about an illegal road that was built a few years ago to link a settlement outpost in the place wih the ‘Emmanue settlement’. There is another section of another road that was built in an olive field for the Palestinians. A few years ago, settlers were convicted with building the first section of the road and were fined, but this did not stop them.
There is also talk of building roads in the South Hebron Hills area, and a new road near the village of QarawatBani Hassan, located in the middle of ‘Samaria’ (north of the West Bank), and another road on private Palestinian land, to create a connection with a farm established by settlers in the area, and another road near the sewage treatment facility of the Palestinian city of Salfit – this is only a partial list’.
The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlement also follows up settlement activities as settlers are exploiting the war on Gaza to impose new settlement de facto through building more settlement outposts and building roads between settlements, especially between settlement outposts and nearby settlements. With this extreme right-wing government, settlers have so far established 62 isolated settlement outposts and pastoral farms, a number of which were established during the war and each of which occupies lands designated ‘for Jews only.
Some of those pastoral outposts and farms were established by relatives working for the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority. Through it, settlers systematically control the water springs used by the Palestinians. The latest wave of control focused on the springs in the northern Jordan Valley. Palestinian villages and communities found themselves besieged from all sides, and a number of communities evacuated their residential areas due to organized terrorism. The settlers receive support and encouragement not only from Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir, but also from other ministers in Netanyahu’s Government.
Minister of Environmental Protection, Aidit Salman, is a prominent supporter of the settlers; she does not miss an opportunity to support their sense of sovereignty over the land. During the war, the aforementioned minister conducted a tour with the head of the Regional Council, ‘Gush Etzion’” a tour that dealt with illegal construction in the areas of the Palestinian Authority, all under the title:‘Threat to Jewish settlement, loss of control, and destruction of natural treasures.’
Here, we present some examples of what is happening on the ground because of the brutal war, which Israel is waging against the Gaza Strip and in the circumstances of the annexation of the West Bank as well, without the “Civil Administration,” which is controlled by Smotrich, doing anything. In the town of Kafr al-Dik, in Salfeet Governorate, bulldozing work took place to build a settlement road in the northwestern area of the town that included dozens of dunams, to build a road linking the Beduel settlement.
In QarawaBani Hassan village in Salfeet Governorate, settlers also built a settlement road in the town’s lands, northwest of Governorate, to connect the settlement outpost “HafayatYair” and the “Ras” area northof the town, with the aim of seizing more than 3,000dunams of the towns of QarawatBani Hassan and Deir-Istia, they targeted landowners who tried to reach the bulldozed area with live bullets, and kept them away. In the southeast of the city of Hebron, settlers began building a settlement road on citizens’ lands in the village of Birin, more than 3 km long, aiming to connect the “BneiHefer” settlement with a new settlement outpost that was established last yearnear the village.
As for MasaferYatta, a group of settlers built a settlement road that begins from the “Avigal” settlement all the way to the “Ma’on” settlement, on an area of more than 13 dunums of citizens’ land, to isolate the Masafer area from what is known as ShifaYatta to the east, thus becoming completely besieged, which means harassing the population centers in those areas, restricting them, and displacing them, in the interest of expanding settlement. On the lands of Khirbet Yanun, belonging to the municipality of Aqraba, Nablus, settlers from “GivatHilam” built a new settlement road in the place towards the south and east aiming to expel and displace the Palestinian pastoral community there.
In Al-Khader town, Bethlehem Governorate, settlers with the help of the occupation army built a settlement road extending from the settlement outpost to the “Umm Rukba” area after the occupation forces declared it a closed military zone. On the lands of the villages of Qaryut and Talfit, the settlers also built more than one settlement road, some of which were to connect the “Shilo” and “Eli” settlements and a new settlement outpost in the place, and some of which were to expand the borders of the Elieh settlement and outposts on the lands of the 2 villages.
In his turn, Ben Gvirsubjugatethe Israeli Police operating in the West Bank, including Jerusalem to work entirely under the settlers’ wishes. Under instructions from Ben Gvir, as the Minister of National Security in the Israeli Government, the Israeli police, since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip adopted a violent policy to reduce freedom of expression and the right to protest. It dispersed peaceful protest demonstrations in more than one place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, but at the same time, allowed a provocative march by settlers and the extreme right in the Old City of Jerusalem, whose organizers call for the expulsion of the Jordanian Endowments from the Holy Mosque of Jerusalem, a march that Ben Gvir knows that it was organized by terrorists of the‘Kach Movement’.
Inspector General of the Israeli Police, Ya’akovShabtaidecided under Ben Gvir’s instructions, to appoint Officer,TzachiSharaabi, as a security secretary and operations official in the Ministry of National Security, as commander of the police brigade in the ‘Samaria’ area “north of the West Bank”. It is 1 of 2 brigades in the West Bank, responsible for “fighting Jewish terrorism” in this region, and participates in the evacuation of random settlement outposts and daily issues related to settler attacks on Palestinians and their property.
Ben Gvir also approved the appointment of a police officer, NessoGoeta, as commander of the so-called “Jewish Brigade” in the southern West Bank. Although he was recently convicted of assaulting a protester and anphotographer during protests against PM Netanyahu in 2020, Goeta was sentenced to a 5-month sentence. Thegoal of such appointments is to control the behavior of the police in dealings with Jewish terrorist organizations operating in the settlements, such as the “Hill Youth” and the “Price Tag” terrorist thugs, that is, the complete subjugation of the police apparatus and the so-called law enforcement apparatus to work only in the service of the settlers.
On the other hand, the Occupation Authorities warned of the evacuation of 30 families from their homes near the Moroccan Gate in occupied East Jerusalem within 2 months, and at the same time confiscated lands to complete the implementation of the light cable-car plan, with the aim of establishing poles, a parking lot for cars and buses, and an adjacent settlement center called ‘Kedem’ for the benefit of the ‘EladSettlementAssociation. The Local Committee for Planning and Construction in Jerusalem indicated that this comes “under the National Outline Plan, the cable car of the Old City” on the grounds that it is “required for a general need for a transportation line, and that it intends to obtain ownership of the aforementioned land, and every person who has ownership to itmust apportion it within 60 days from the day the announcement, and that it is ready to negotiate, and every owner to the land has the right to ask forcompensation.
Knowing that the length of the cable car is 1.6 km in 3 parts, the first is 1,300m long, and extends from the train stationpasses alongside the wall of the Old City and the Gate of the Prophet Dawood. The second part is 1,000m long and connects the Old City to the Mount of Olives near the Seven Arches Hotel, while the third part is 500m long and extends from the Mount of Olives to the outer area of the Moroccan Gate. Worth mentioning that many of the residents ofSilwantown, the merchants of the Old City, and Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations objected the plan, but the Israeli courts rejected their objection, and gave the green light to implement the settlement project. Thus, large areas of Palestinians in the Neighborhoods of Al-Thawri, WadiHilweh, Al-Sawwanah, Al-Tur, and Mount of Olives will be emptied, and the Islamic and Christian Endowment’s land will be confiscated,
At the same time, the so-called ‘Israeli Jerusalem Development Authority’ is planning to establish a new settlement neighborhood on an area of 39 dunums in the BeitSafafavillage, initiated by the ‘General Guardian’ at the Ministry of Justice. According to the plan, 720 apartments will be built within reaching a height of 24 floors, in addition to a school, kindergarten, and synagogues. For their part people of BeitSafafa submitted an objection in which they asserted that, such a settlement plan isolates them from their Palestinian surroundings, and thefts their lands even though the scarcity of building permits that are granted to them.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Demolishing a two-story building under the pretext of not having a license in the Ras al-Amud Neighborhood, each contains 4 apartments, with an area of 110M2, located near WadiQaddum. The apartments are owned by: Zuhair Abdel Aziz Ghaith and his brother Murad Abdel Aziz Ghaith, Fahd Mubarak and his brother Muhammad Mubarak, who mentioned that the building was built in 2016, and they paid to the occupation municipalityfines amounting to NIS 800,000.
- Demolishing a barn and a farm belonging to the citizen Muhammad Ahmed Hilwa in the Anatatown, east of Jerusalem.
Hebron:
- Injuring 3 people from the Al-Dababasa familyon the village of Khallet Al-Dab’a in MasaferYatta, south of Hebron, a number of them were assaulted and sustained bruises, and then transferred to “Abu Al-Hassan Al-Qasim” Hospital in Yatta for treatment.
- Storming theTil-Ma’in area, and performed their Talmudic prayers and set up “menorahs” in the place, while the occupation closed the roadsand prevented the people from accessing the place.
- Damaging a vehicle belonging to the citizen Moh’dAbd al-RahmanJabarin during an aggression carried out in the Shaab al-Butm area, destroyed water tanks during their storming of the house of the citizen Ibrahim al-Nawaja’a in the Wadi Abu Jahish area.
Bethlehem:
- Seizing scores of dunams south of Bethlehem, planted them with seeds in the “Khallet Al-Nahla” area near Abu Injeim, adjacent to the university campus, near “Efrat settlement, they also seized 12 dunums in the same area, close to the village of WadiRahal, and planted them with forest trees, and moreover, they seized 300 dunums and planted them as well.
- Uprooting 15 almond trees in the “Al-Tabq” area, damaged barbed wire fence, seized water tanks and pipes belonging to the citizen Dakhil Salem Abayat. They forced him at gunpoint to leave his 4.5 dunams, and threatened him not to come back.
- Demolishing a cave called the “Nimer”, and bulldozed an agricultural road built by the Artasvillage council, while settlers plowed private lands in the village in the “Jabal Abu Zeid” area south of the village, belonging to a number of citizens, and opened fire against citizens, who tried to reach the place.
Nablus:
- Closing the only waste dump in the Beitatown, south of Nablus, in the Al-Arma area, east of the town that also serves the neighboring villages of Osrin and Odala. They closed the paved road leading to the place and destroyed the electricity network and high-voltage lines in the area. The initial losses are estimated at more than NIS 150,000. This came in response to thesettlers of the ‘Itamar settlers’ desire to close the dump.
- Burgling 6 sheep from the southeast of the village of Qasra, belonging to the citizen ShinawiTayseer Hassan, they also attacked citizens’ vehicles near the town of Al-Laban Al-Sharqiya, south of Nablus, with stones.
- Gatheringof settlers amid orgy and provocation of citizens near the ZaytounaJunction on the main road of the Huwaratown.
- Storming a water spring in the village of Qariot and performed Talmudic rituals at the place, noting that the settlers storm the spring on a weekly basis protected by the occupation soldiers, who fire bullets and tear gas bombs at citizens.
- Attacking olive pickers in the Old Yanun Street area and fired live bullets to scare citizens and force them to leave their lands in the Aqrabatown.
Salfeet:
- Notifying of the seizure of the “DeirQalaa”archaeological area, east of the town of DeirBallut, west of Salfit, with an area of 18 dunams. Noteworthy adding that “DeirQalaa” is located 2 km east of DeirBallut, and the construction of the Deir dates back to 1,500 years, while settlement construction continues to advance alongside it through the “Beduel settlement”, and close to it is the “Leshem settlement”, built on citizens’ lands in the towns of Kafr al-Dik and DeirBallut.
- Storming the Islamic shrines in the KiflHaristown, north of Salfeet, they performed Talmudic rituals, accompanied by the closure of shops and the prevention of citizens from movement.
Jordan Valley:
- Storming the Atuf area in the northern Jordan Valley, and seized an agricultural tractor owned by Bilal JamilBaniOdeh.
- Demolishing 4 residential rooms i.e. ‘an old building’ in the Khazouq Musa area near theMarjNa’ja village, a solar cell, anda well to irrigate crops, while settlers stole about 30 cows, east of Ein-Hilweh in the northern Jordan Valley, belonging to the citizen Adel E’laianDaraghmeh, and then took them to a settlements.
