المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
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By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
TheNational Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that in a provocative way, the Israeli Occupation Minister of Finance. and Minister of Settlements, BezalelSmotrich, accompanied by AiditSiliman, Minister of Environment, and Shlomo Neman, Chairman of the Settlement Council‘Yesha’ in the West Bank, toured the Al-Auja Spring area north of Jericho in response to the operation that took place there last week, and announced from there to invest unprecedented budgets to transform the place into a tourist area.Silliman said, ‘the Jordan Valley is not only Israel’s security backyard, but also the eastern defensive wall. Thus, we will expand the natural reserve and encourage Israelis to staythere. We are investing a lot now in the Jordan Valley, whether in the field of surveying ‘state lands’ or in the field of increasing the areas of settlement influence and structural construction plans, organizing natural reserves, water sources, tourist, and normalizing life there.’
Smotrich, who spoke about transferring budgets from the Civil Administration and the Ministry of Security to implement them.The storming of the Auja Spring areaby Smotrich and Siliman, accompanied by ShlomoNeeman, comes within the framework of the occupation’s plans to annex and Judaize the entire Jordan Valley region, especially after the decision to confiscate more than 8,000 dunams in the northern Jordan Valley, from the lands of the town of Aqraba, and its extension into the Central Jordan Valley, to build hundreds of housing units, in addition to an area designated for industry, trade, and employment, as well as seizing large areas of citizens’ lands in the area.
The Arab Al-Ta’amra, east of Bethlehem is the third area to be seized under the pretext that it is state land, beginning the total number of lands seized by the current occupation government since 2024, to a total of 11,000dunums of citizens’ lands in the governorates of Jerusalem, Nablus, and Bethlehem. Smotrich’svisit, accompanied by Minister Siliman and the head of the settlement council in the West Bank, to the Al-Auja Spring area, and his promises to develop settlement in the region and in the Palestinian Jordan Valley in general, were understood by the settlers as a green light to carry out a criminal act in their own way. They remembered Smotrich’s call to burn the town of Hawara about a year ago, and they followed the same path, but this time in the spring of Auja. As soon as this minister and his companions left the area, last Friday, those settlers attacked the citizens’ homes in the Auja Spring community, setting them on fire and writing racist slogans on the place.
In connection with Minister Smotrich, the Administration of US President Joe Biden has significantly reduced, according to Israeli sources, the sanctions it imposed on a number of settlers who, in accordance with the president’s executive order in this regard, practice violence against Palestinians, as they will be able to use their bank accounts in Israeli banks. Israeli political and media sources considered that a great achievement for Smotrich. Considering that, the US Administration’s original announcement of sanctions against violent settlers is devoid of any substance, as freezing the settlers’ bank accounts was the only step that practically affected them.
BezalSmotrich, under pressure from his electoral base, had threatened, in response to the US President’s executive order, not to renew his signature on a document that provides protection from lawsuits for the Israeli “Discount” and “Poalim” banks, with which they have finance relations with the Palestinian Authority. It is known that in the absence of protection, Israeli banks are expected to sever their relations with Palestinian banks, for fear of being exposed to international lawsuits on charges of transferring money to terrorism, since the Palestinian Authority’s economy depends on the relationship with Israel, this means a freeze in Palestinian economic activity, a development that the Americans did not want to happen. From their experience with Smotrich, they knew that he would carry out the threat with the support behind the scenes of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a number of ministers in his government.
Despite that, the repercussions of the sanctions imposed by the United States of America and a number of European countries on terrorist settlers who practice violence against Palestinians and on settlement entities such as settlement outposts are still affecting, even in Israel. A report issued by the Institute for National Security Research at Tel Aviv University last week considered that the imposition of personal sanctions by Western countries on terrorist settlers is a “very worrying development,” because it “places Israel in one group with countries that do not belong to the club of liberal, law-abiding countries, as the report stated.
The report added, “There is a great fear that since the United States and other countries have used the personal sanctions tool, will continue in the future against Israeli officials. The sanctions are being used at this stage against individuals, but there is a possibility that sanctions will be implemented against official as well, due to the lack of Law enforcement against violent settlers, perhaps due to trespassing on property.” The report called on Israel to ‘deal with the new and dangerous phenomenon of personal sanctions against Israeli entities with full seriousness, in addition working in a more comprehensive manner in order to curb the severe deterioration in Israel’s international standing.”
As for settlement plans and activities, the Israeli government last week discussed a detailed draft resolution entitled “The Government’s Powers in the Settlement Field,” the content of which is to remove all restrictions on the settlement section, the Zionist Histadrut, and investment behind the Green Line. The decision, which aimed to transfer responsibility for the Settlement Department from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Settlement and National Tasks undertaken by Minister Orit Struck of “Religious Zionism,” contained about 30 main clauses and many sub-clauses, including transferring the powers of financial control over the department from an external accountant to the department’s accountant by raising the ceiling. The Settlement Department’s connections with government ministries range from 10% – 30%. The services provided by the department are within the scope of Struck’s powers without transferring them to the government first. Decisions to establish new settlements are taken by Struck only, without obtaining the approval of the Minister of Construction and Housing and increasing the Settlement Department’s budget by 10% – NIS 40,000,000 annually.”
Lastweek, in Jerusalem, the Moshe Leon municipality approved a budget to establish a sports field allocated to 9 Jewish families residing in JabalMukaber. It allocated NIS 2,000,000 to establish the stadium at a time when there is no similar stadium for the Palestinians surrounding the settlement, who are more than 30,000 citizens. Haaretz Newspaper reported that the Nof Zion settlement was established on JabalMukaber about 15 years ago in the middle of the Palestinian neighborhood. The settlement is being expanded and a new neighborhood is being built there at the initiative of businessman Rami Levy and Australian billionaire Kevin Burmeister, after completing the construction of the new neighborhood, it is expected that the settlement will double its population.
Noting that the JabalMukaber Neighborhood, like the rest of the Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, suffers from a lack of public places, playgrounds and children’s parks. In general, the occupation municipality practices a blatant discriminatory policy in this regard, as it allocates generous funds to construct public buildings in settlements built in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods, such as a ‘sterilization pond’ in Ma’aleZeitim in Ras al-Amud, where 100 families live, at a cost of NIS 11,000,000, and a similar pond at a cost of NIS 13.5 million in the Nof Zion settlement, to the point that Laura Furton, a member of the Jerusalem Municipal Council for the Meretz party, was surprised and asked, ‘Is it reasonable for the municipality to invest those huge sums of money on a family’s property while neglecting the rest of the population? It is absurd that there is such blatant discrimination among the city’s residents.
Within the context, there is a wide discussion taking place in the political community in Israel these days about the recruitment of Haredi Jews in the army, just like other Jewish residents of this country. Benjamin Netanyahu is stuck between two positions. The first is the position of the religious authorities, which see the study of the Torah as a higher value in the state, no less than military service. The second is the position of the military and security circles, which need more conscripts to serve in the army that has become a confrontation in the Gaza Strip as well as Lebanon. The army has a plan in this regard that revolves around absorbing those people into a new militia, in addition to the Ben Gvir militia ‘emergency teams’, as an alternative to the military service that the Haredim reject.
Members of this new militia will undergo weapons training similar to soldiers’ training, so that more forces will be transferred from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip and the Lebanese border. The commander of the Central Command of the occupation army, Yehuda Fuchs, a friend of the settlers, is planning to recruit ultra-Orthodox young men to guard settlements and outposts in the West Bank, not within the framework of the army, so that in light of this he can transfer a portion of his soldiers in the West Bank to the Gaza Strip or the Lebanese border area, according to what was reported by YediothAhronoth Newspaper last Sunday.
The settlements drain the energies of the occupation army. The guard squad in the smallest settlement outpost in the West Bank includes 16 soldiers, while the guard squad for a large settlement includes about 60 soldiers. Under the conditions of war, according to army data, the occupying state formed 368 new civilian militias and supplied them with tens of thousands of weapons. This is no longer sufficient. Hence, the difficulty in the controversy surrounding military service can be resolved by forming a new militia of “Haredi” Jews, in which there will be a representative of a guarding authorityin each brigade, and it forms a link between those guard forces and the occupation army, to secure about 200 settlements and settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, where they need 6.5 – 7,000 Haredim to engage in guarding the settlements, which could double to 15,000 in the event of expansion the work of the authority to guard the settlements to the south and north of Israel.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Injuring a young man, 23 by settlers’ bullets during their attack on the Mikhmastown, northeast of occupied Jerusalem, at least 30 settlers stormed the town from the eastern side during breakfast time, smashed the windows of a number of vehicles and fired live bullets against the citizens. They also attacked 3 young men who confronted them, and sustained bruises.
- Demolishing shops and commercial facilities working in the spare part of car at the Martyr Oreiba Junction, Hizma town.
- Preparingto ritually burn the “Red Cow” in the Mount of Olives area and scatter its ashes in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque, marking the start of the rituals for establishing the alleged “Third Temple,” and preparing for millions of Jews to storm the mosque after the “Five Cows” were brought last year from Texas, America, and for this purpose, last Wednesday, the so-called “Temple Institute” held a special conference, to discuss religious preparations for holding these rituals that aim to purify themselves from “the impurity of the dead,” to bypass the ban imposed by the Chief Rabbinate due to “lack of the condition of purity.”
Hebron:
- Assaulting and beaten a citizen while he was herding his sheep in lands of the Al-Tuwanahvillage, Dura, and they threatened to shoot and kill him if comes again, and then he was taken to a hospital for treatment. They also arrested the citizen, Subha Mahmoud Al-Adra, and her daughter, Sanaa, while they were herding sheep near their homes in the MasaferYatta, and transferred them to the “Susya” camp.
- Attacking the citizens and their homes, seized a vehicle, and threatened them with death in the Berinvillage.
- Handing over demolition orders to the residents, while settlers attacked the home of the family of the citizen Moh’dAbd al-Rahman al-Jabarin, in the Sha’b al-Batam area in MasaferYatta, and threatened them to leave. Settlers from the “GivatYair” and “Susiya” settlements also attacked citizen, Samiha Ismail Salama Al-Nawaja. 50, causing her to suffer bruises and injuries.
- Demolishing 2 houses under construction in the village of Al-Simiya, north of the town of Al-Samou, owned by citizens Maher Ahmed Abdel-Mahrek and Khalaf Abdel Aziz Abdel-Mahrek.
Bethlehem:
- Seizing 170 dunums of citizens’ lands in the Arab Al-Ta’amra area, east of Bethlehem, under the pretext that they are state lands. It is the third seizure operation under the same pretexts since the beginning of 2024. The targeted lands are located in basin no. 4 for the Al-Uqban and Al-Furaidis areas, and basin n. 11 for the Fadel plot in the Al-Ta’mra lands. The spatial data associated with the order allocated to this announcement indicate that its goal is to conduct expansion operations of the “Sidi Bar” settlement established on citizens’ lands in Al-Oqban, the town of Al-Ta’mra in the governorate.
- Kidnapping the boy, Basil Abdel WahabHamamra, 17, while herding sheep in the Al-Sharafa area, Husan village.
- Storming the Al-Muteena and Al-Sharafa areas, and seized agricultural tractorin the town of Battir, west of Bethlehem, belonging to citizen Hussein Khalil Abu Nimah,55 while he was plowing his land in an area where settlers have established a settlement outpost.
- Attacking the house of citizen Bilal Abu Kamel and smashed the doors and camerason its walls. Others destroyed solar panels and the contents of an agricultural room belonging to the citizen Moh’dYahyaAyesh, including 3 water tanks, 2 electric generators, a grass cutting machine, a grape vine, a plastic house, and lighting flashlightsin the Khalayel-Lawz area, southeast of Bethlehem.
- Throwingwaste into a water collection well in the Khallet al-Nahla area near the village of WadiRahal.
- Seizing 53 sheep belonging to the citizen Khalil Abd Salman, while they were grazing in theTuqu’ wilderness.
Ramallah:
- Storming the Maghayir al-Deir Bedouin community east of Ramallah, wandered between houses, broke into one of the houses, and threatened the citizens about taking their sheep out to graze in the nearby area, attempted to assault a child while he was in the place.
- Distributing orders to demolish houses of a number of citizens of in the Sinjiltown, adjacent to st. 60.
Nablus:
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles with stones on the road between Hawara and Qalqilia, after it was opened, which was closed since October 7.
- Closing the road to the Huwara checkpoint and prevented vehicles entering and leaving Nablus or passing through the checkpoint.
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles on the Salman Al-FarisiJunction in Huwara and threw stones at them, and also attacked citizens’ vehicles on the road near the ‘Yitzhar settlement’.
- Demolishing an agricultural room in the northern area of theQasratown, cut down olive trees, and damaged the fence surrounding the land belonging to the citizen Qusay Abdel Moneim.
- Assaulting a young man, 20 in the Hawara town, beating him, causing him to suffer a fracture in his hand, then he was taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, the occupation forces fired toxic tear gas canisters at citizens in the center of the town, causing a number of them to suffocate.
Salfeet:
- Handing 3 orders to stop construction on a house under construction, and to remove agricultural caravans in the “KhalletQasoul” area, south of the Deir Ballot town.
- Seizing a bulldozer in QarawatBani Hassan,while reclaiming the garden of a house in the “Al-Tall” area, north of the town, and grazed their cows on lands belonging to the citizen Riyad Khalil Abdel Majeed Youssef.
Jenin:
- Bulldozing lands in the industrial zone northeast of Jenin and demolished a basement of a house under construction in the village of Um al-Rihan near Ya`bad, inside the Apartheid Wall, belonging to the citizen Nidal Ahmed Ali Zaid, without receiving a demolition order.
Jordan Valley:
- Injuring 4 citizens when settlers attacked the Arab Rashaida community adjacent to the Al-Auja Spring, north of Jericho, causing them to suffer bruises and wounds. They also tried to steal sheep, after the extremist Israeli minister, BezalelSmotrich, and head of the settlement council in the West Bank stormed the area, and their announcement of control over the Al-Auja water spring.
- Grazing their sheep on a crop of wheat and barley belonging to the citizen,Moh’dIshaqRashayda, a resident of the Arab community, caused damage to the crop.
- Demolishing 6 warehouses under construction in the Al-Auja town, north of Jericho, belonging to the citizen Moh’dRomanin after he was notified two weeks ago of the demolition, despite his submission of an appeal to the occupation court.
