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 any person follows up the developments on the ground in the West Bank, realizes that the situation has shifted to a new phase of confrontation between Palestinian citizens and the Occupying State, represented by its army and the settlers, as they follow organized terror, through tearing the West Bank apart by military checkpoints, iron gates, and dirt barriers, as well as launching raids on cities, towns, villages, and camps, besides, killing people, demolishingtheir homes, and carrying out arrest campaigns around the clock. They also receive support and encourage by the political circles in the government and the Knesset, as well as from influential circles in the police and army, and from what the occupation authorities call the law enforcement agencies.
Very recently, within the context of the brutal war waged by the Occupying State on Gaza that accompanied by war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, the activities of Jewish terrorist organizations have expanded, which take the settlements, outposts, and so-called pastoral farms as safe havens protected by the army and emergency teams that were formed and armed by Ben Gvir, as they have started burning the Palestinians’ crops and trees, stealing their crops, destroying their water wells, preventing them from benefiting from their water springs, storming their homes in their towns and villages, blocking their roads, and throwing stones at them and their vehicles.
The settlers’ attacks have entered a new phase through using weapons and making it easy to shoot, as their army does, until the number of martyrs who died from the fire of the settlers since 7Oct. till the day this report was issued has reached to 18 martyrs, after the settlements turned into armed arsenals and greenhouses for breeding terrorist ideology and forming organizations that turned into a force of pressure and aggression that defies, so to speak, even the measures they resort to the occupation authorities to keep the situation under control and absorb international reactions, which condemn settler violence.
In any case, all measures taken by the Occupation Authorities to keep the situation under control in the West Bank remain clearly discriminatory measures. The use of what these authorities call means of imposing or enforcing the law is not based on violating the law itself, but rather according to the nationality of the person violating the law. It is for the Jews who sometimes attack even soldiers and police with stones that mean nothing. As for the Palestinians who try to confront the settlers’ attacks and terrorist acts, they are shot without accountability. From the point of view of the Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, in his positions and follow-ups, which address settler violence, they do not want to see the masked tyrannical settlers beating elderly Palestinian shepherds with sticks and clubs and even puncturing the tires of the cars of the soldiers guarding them. As for Israeli civil society organizations, they see that the settlers have become… the most powerful political pressure group in Israel has those who support them in the government and in the Knesset. It carries weapons and controls vital information in the Civil Administration, which allowed them to carry out illegal actions until they became a state, as if the State of Israel was a foreign rule, like the British mandate at the time. They control property and lands as much as possible, and ignore anything else.
Violence of the settlers issponsored by the Occupying State, remains an integral part of the Israeli apartheid system that aspires to Judaize the place, fragment and disintegrate the Palestinian space, strip the Palestinians of their lands, and place them in isolation, leaving them no room even to object to the official authorities and law enforcement authorities, to the point of futility through resorting to these parties, as long as they deal with breaking the law based on the identity of the person doing so, based on data from Israeli Human Rights organizations over the past 15 years, following up on investigation files into settler violence is a formal matter, as over these years more than 1,200 investigation files were opened and an indictment was submitted in only 100 of them.
The new of most violence is that it emanates from settlement outposts and so-called pastoral farms, and that it increases 10 times in the various areas of the West Bank since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip, compared to what it was before 7 Oct. The level of violence and terrorism of these settlers has escalated after arming more than 17,000 settlers after the war and after forming their own militias, including emergency teams and others, and are completely freed by the occupation army.
Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate had a large share of this violence. The settlers continued their terrorist attacks, protected by the occupation forces, on several villages north and east of the city of Ramallah, ‘Al-Mughayir, Beitin, Deir Jarir, Silwad, Ein Sinya, Abu Falah, Burqa, Atara, and Al-Mazraa Al-Gharbiyya’, which led to the martyrdom of 2 citizens, one of them in Al-Mughayir, named Jihad Abu Alia’, the second in Beitin, named Omar Hamed, wounding dozens and burning dozens of homes and vehicles.
The Al-Mughair village, east of the city of Ramallah, which the occupation army, and settlers attack last week in search of a child, who was grazing sheep in a pastoral settlement outpost in the area, but the sheep returned and the child did not return. He died on the spot from the bite of a Palestinian snake, according to the well-known Israeli journalist Barak Rafid. So the settlers invaded the village and its surroundings in a barbaric act that resulted in killing Jihad AfifSidqi Abu Aliya, and 10 injuries, including 8 by live bullets, one by live bullet fragments, and another by a stone in the head.
Settlers burned more than 40 homes and vehicles. This village, which sacrificed many of its people and all its families as martyrs in the battles to defend the land, was subjected two years ago to a siege in which even members of the Knesset participated. They set up their sit-in tents at its eastern entrance and continued for more than a month as a reward for the settlers, who established 5 pastoral settlement outposts on the surrounding peaks. In the village, which is besieged from all sides by settlement after they left only 1,200 dunums of the village’s land area, which amounts to 41,000 dunums, extending along the edge of the Palestinian Jordan Valley in that vital area.
As for the Nablus Governorate, it also exposed to a wave of terrorism carried out by a large number of terrorist settlers, whom political and media circles in the United States of America and several countries in the EU describe as violent settlers. The scene of this wave of terrorism covered the villages of Asira al-Qibliya, al-Laban al-Sharqiya, Jalud, Qaryut, Qasra, Douma, and Khirbet al-Tawil to the east of the town of Aqraba, which was subjected to an attack that resulted in the martyrdom of Moh’d Bani Jama` and Abd al-Rahman Bani Fadel. A number of settlers, protected by the Israeli occupation forces, attacked citizens while they were on their land in Khirbet al-Tawil and fired live bullets at them, wounding two citizens who were later declared martyred. With the death of the two martyrs, Bani Jami’ and Bani Fadel, the death toll in the West Bank since 7 Oct. rose to 468, including 18 who were shot by settlers’ bullets, while more than 4,800 others were injured.
Within this context, the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions over the weekend on settlement groups and settlers, who carried out attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. The United States imposed sanctions on two entities for their role in collecting donations for violent settlers: the “Lehava” organization and the “Mount Hebron Fund.” As for the settlers who were subjected to sanctions, they are Meir Ettinger, Elisha Yared, Naria Ben Vazi, and Finon Levy. The European Union sanctions include not allowing them to enter the Union countries, imposing a ban on their assets, and not allowing them to deal with European citizens.
On the other hand, the machine of settlement, displacement and ethnic cleansing does not stop working. In the policy of displacement and ethnic cleansing, practiced by the occupation authorities and the Moshe Leon municipality in Jerusalem, as the Supreme Court Judge Noam Solberg issued an order last week to evacuate 15 Palestinians from their homes in Silwan for the benefit of the settlers. Solberg not only ordered the evacuation of the building in which 3 families lived until June 1, but also fined the families NIS 5,000 as fees for the settlers’ lawyers. In another ruling, Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Daniel Mordechai Dampets decided that 20 members of the Saleh’s family, who have lived in Sheikh Jarrah for decades, must leave their home until July 17 for the benefit of the settlers, and pay an amount of NIS 80,000 to the “Nahlat Shimon” company. It is a company registered abroad and controlled by right-wing activists.
The sequence of events in Sheikh Jarrah is similar to what is happening in Silwan, where the talk revolves around land that was owned by Jews before 1948, in both cases, the eviction took place at the request of right-wing activists based on a racist law that allows only Jews to claim back property that was theirs before 1948. According to estimates, about a third of the properties in west Jerusalem were owned by Palestinians, but these properties were transferred to the hands of the state and private hands based on the “Absentee Property” law, where the Palestinians are not allowed to demand its return.
In Jerusalem, the “Amana” settlement organization recently submitted a new settlement plan to the local Planning and Building Committee, asking it to build 6 additional floors to its existing two-story building in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The plan includes offices, commercial spaces, and a conference and events hall with a height of up to 8 floors, opposite the headquarters of the Regional Police Command. In the 1990s, the organization obtained private land seized from the Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. This plan is not just a plan to introduce an additional settlement building as much as it is a new gift to this settlement organization to develop its sources of income, as the Jerusalem Municipality is renting offices from “Amana” in the building, and has chosen to operate the Social Welfare Office specifically for the residents of the Israeli neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem, and most importantly, it will enable the organization to Converting a building into a space where you can manage an expansion activity within a Palestinian neighborhood
The Occupation Authorities are escalating the operations of confiscation, bulldozing, and demolition notices in various areas in the West Bank in favor of settlement expansion. They issued a military decision to seize 64 dunums of citizens’ lands in the Buira area, north of the city of Hebron, in order to establish a residential and industrial settlement in a move aimed at displacing the population of the area, who number approximately 8,000 to seize and control approximately 800 dunums. The “Al-Buira” area, which its residents describe as “God’s paradise on earth” due to its vineyards, fruit orchards, water ponds, and stunning views, constitutes one of the areas targeted for settlement expansion in the region.
Al-Buira is under full Israeli control, as it is located between the KiryatArba settlement and the Kharsina settlement on an area 2000 dunums and surrounded by new settlement outposts, and the occupation considers it an extension of natural settlement expansion. The citizens of “Al-Buira” are subjected to attacks by settlers from the “Kharsina” settlement, KiryatArba, and the outposts surrounding the area, in addition to being deprived of access to their lands through the street adjacent to the settlement, controlling the tops of the hills in that area that lies outside the wall, and opening dirt roads therein as a sign of their confiscation and declaration for future expansion sites.
Settlers also began establishing two new settlement outposts on lands threatened with confiscation in the Ain al-Hilweh area in the northern Jordan Valley, east of st. 60, near the Bedouin communities that belong to the Wadi al-Malih area, 20 kilometers from the city of Tubas. They accelerated the work of establishing a third outpost at the Al-Auja water spring north of Jericho. This outpost is occupied by a settler who lives in a settlement outpost next to the Al-Marajat community called “Zohar,” who has previously carried out many attacks on citizens in that area. Settlers also threatened Bedouin families in the Ras Ain Nabaa Al-Auja community, by removing the water lines that supply their Bedouin communities.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- bulldozing the land of Souq ‘Market of al-Juma’ah’, “the land of the khandaq’ east of the Jerusalem Wall, and completely uprooted the asphalt in preparation for establishing a biblical park. They storm the land and began bulldozing it in mid-February and disrupted its use as a parking lot, even though it was owned by the Jerusalemites families of Owais, Hamad, and Atallah. Noteworthy that the targeted parking lot had an area of 1,260 square meters and was closed off with cement cubes.
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles on the road between the village of Jaba and the town of Hizma.
Hebron:
- Attacking shepherds in the BadiaYatta area in the Al-Zudin area in the Eastern Badia and prevented farmers from reaching their lands.
- Storming the archaeological hill of Ma’in, east of the town of Yatta, and performed provocative Talmudic prayers in the place under the guard of occupation soldiers. They also attacked farmers, homeowners, and their property in the Shaab Abu Sakur area near the town of Tarqumiya, west of Hebron.
- Attacking citizens in the village of Maghayir Al-Ubaid, forcibly evacuated its residents from their homes at gunpoint, and severely beaten an Israeli peace activist. They also stormed the Al-Jawaya area in Al-Musafer and pursued sheep shepherds. Settlers from “Avigal” and “Mitzpe Yair” settlers also attacked the village of Sha’b al-Batam and burned a citizen’s vehicle.
Bethlehem:
- Citizen, Alaa Omar Abu Ghalioun, 42 suffered bruises and wounds as a result of the settlers’ assault on him in the town of Al-Khader while he was on his land in the “Batin Al-Maasi” area, south of the town, sustained bruises and bleeding wounds, after which he was transferred to Beit Jala Governmental Hospital to receive treatment.
- Attacking a number of population centers south of Bethlehem, especially Khirbet Baluta and Beit Askaria, while a settler stormed land in the Khalayel al-Luz area and grazed his livestock on land planted with almonds and olives, and destroyed a number of trees, belonging to citizens of the Suwais family.
Nablus:
- Burning a house and a vehicle in the eastern town of Luban and assaulted a citizen of the village, causing him to suffer a fracture in his hand.
- Attacking the village of Al-Sawiya, fired live bullets at them, and stole 7 sheep from the vicinity of one of the homes.
- Burning a commercial store, homes, and vehicles, while four citizens in the village of Duma were injured, and dozens of homes were burned after a settler was found dead in a nearby area from a snake bite.
Qalqilia:
- Scores of settlers gathered on the main road linking the cities of Qalqilya and Nablus at the intersection of the two villages of Jit, near the “Qadumim” settlement, and attacked citizens’ vehicles. A citizen from the town of Amatin was injured by stones while passing near the entrance to the “Yitzhar” settlement, while settlers from the “Havat Gilad” settlement attacked with stones citizens while they were working on their land in the towns of Git and Amatin.
Jordan Valley:
- Burning 4 citizens’ homes in the Nab’ al-Auja community and wrote racist slogans on citizens’ homes belonging to the Rashayda and Ghawanmeh Arabs.
- Attacking vehicles and assaulted Bedouin tents On the Al-Ma’rajat road, in the Al-Malihat Arab community in the area, and they grazed their sheep in the community. Others also attacked and destroyed citizens’ homes in Ain al-Hilweh, electrical energy cells supply the “Ain Ghazal” population center in Fareseia.
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles near the villages of Al-Auja, Fasayel, Al-Nabi Musa, and Al-Mu’rajat, and closed a crossroad in Wadi Qilt and the Nabi Musa Road. Others stormed a Bedouin gathering northwest of Jericho, led by the head of the settlement council in the northern West Bank, Yossi Dagan.
