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 political circles friendly to Israel, including the new British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who recently visited Tel Aviv and Ramallah, warned of sanctions that countries might impose on “violent settlers” and their “settlement entities” in light of the increasing frequency of their attacks on Palestinian citizens and because of the Finance Minister and Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of the Army, Bezalel Smotrich’s policy, who continues to work to legitimize more settlement outposts and appoints those close to his “Religious Zionism” party to high-ranking positions in the Civil Administration with broad powers in the field of land confiscation and settlement expansion, which would lead to the imposition of penalties for people involved in violence and establishing settlement outposts.
This warning came as an extension of the sanctions recently imposed by the United States, Canada, Britain, and the European Union on a number of terrorist settlers and their settlement entities. On July 10, the United States imposed sanctions on settlers accused of fueling violence in the occupied West Bank. These sanctions affected the ‘Lehava organization’ and activists of the ‘Order 9 Movement’, who recently blocked trucks carrying aid to Gaza, as well as many settlement outposts in the West Bank. The US State Department said in a statement that it is imposing sanctions on three Israeli individuals and 5 entities linked to acts of violence against civilians in the West Bank. It noted that it specifically targeted the ‘Lehava movement’ and placed it on its blacklist, describing it as “the largest violent extremist organization in Israel” that includes more than 10,000 members, which is a terrorist movement, as everyone knows.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller explained in the context that the US administration strongly encourages the government of Israel! to take immediate steps to hold these individuals and entities accountable. In the absence of such steps, we will continue The State Department imposed its own accountability measures, specifying that such settlement outposts are used to disrupt lands used as pastures, limit access to wells, and launch violent attacks against Palestinians in the vicinity. . The US State Department is aware, of course, and “encourages the government of Israel to take immediate steps to hold these individuals and entities accountable” that this particular government recently agreed to legalize a significant number of settlement outposts in a new step that indicates intentions to effectively annex the West Bank without declaration, including 5 settlement outposts from which ‘violent settlers’ launched 35 attacks on Palestinians in the first six months of this year.
Britain also imposed last week sanctions on 4 settlers and on both “Lehava” and “Hill top Youth” i.e. Price Tag. The British sanctions come after the settlers and the two movements supported, incited, and attacked Palestinians and violated human rights through their attacks on Bedouin communities in throughout the West Bank. Among the settlers, who were subjected to sanctions, is the terrorist Noam Federman, who is very close to Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. This is the second time that Britain has imposed sanctions on settlers involved in terrorism against the Palestinians.
The British Foreign Office announced similar sanctions on February 12. The Ministry explained that it “will not hesitate to take other measures” if the Israeli authorities do not confront settler violence in order to protect Palestinian citizens. The British Ministry was clear in talking about the extremist settler, Noam Federman, who is close to the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir. He is an extremist activist, a settler, and was the spokesman for the fascist “Kach” movement and one of its leaders. It added that Federman trained groups of settlers to implement Violent attacks against Palestinians and taught her how to face possible consequences of her actions from the Israeli authorities.
In turn, the EU imposed new sanctions last week on individuals and organizations involved in Jewish terrorism against the Palestinians, in light of the escalation of settler attacks and incitement to violence against the Palestinians, against the backdrop of the genocidal war launched by Israel against the besieged Gaza Strip since the seventh of last October. The sanctions stipulated freezing assets and banning visas for them. It is the second package of sanctions imposed by the European Union targeting Israeli settlers who practice violence, bringing the total number of those included in it to 14.
The European sanctions targeted the head of the racist “Lehava Movement”, Bentzi Gopstein – close to the director of Ben Gvir’s office, Hanamael Dorfman – and Moshe Sharbit and Zvi. Bar Yosef ‘a supporter of Jewish supremacy’, Baruch Marzel ‘the Jewish Power Party – Itamar Ben Gvir and a follower of Baruch Goldstein’, and Issachar Mani ‘a gang leader residing in a settlement outpost’. And the extremist ’Decree 9’ organization, which is an extremist Israeli settler group that seeks to prevent the arrival of any humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip during the war launched by Israel on the Strip, in addition to a number of settlement farms in the occupied West Bank, prevails in the occupying state. Fears of an increased trend towards imposing sanctions on individuals and organizations linked to the settlement project, against the backdrop of the decision that will be issued by the International Court of Justice in the Hague at the end of the week, which is expected to confirm that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank contradicts international law.
The sanctions are undoubtedly welcome, but they have not yet changed the behavior of the settlers or the policy of the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government. They are penalties on the peripheries, not penalties at the core. Under these sanctions, settler violence against Palestinian citizens doubled, and this violence affected their lives, property, lands, water, and various aspects of their lives. The reason is clear: the occupying state provides them with political, judicial and security protection and rewards them by legitimizing more settlement outposts and turning them into new settlement projects.
In response to these sanctions, Minister Smotrich reiterates that strengthening settlements is the appropriate response to the sanctions, which he considers the product of a false international boycott campaign against the State of Israel aimed at distorting its image, while Itamar Ben Gvir stands behind ‘Decree 9’ and publicly incites against the transfer of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and rewards the settlers arm them and help them build armed militias in these terrorist outposts.
In turn Netanyahu does not let down these violent settlers ‘terrorists’ and does not lag behind in providing them support to the ministers of his government from Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit. He described the sanctions that the American administration waved against the Haredi ‘Netzah Yehuda’ battalion in the occupation army, ‘which includes among its ranks He accused large numbers of hillbilly youth thugs or paid the price (with moral decadence and the height of absurdity’ and pledged to take action to prevent it. At the same time, he stressed that he was working against imposing sanctions on Israeli citizens, as there is no place for taking exceptional measures against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, as the vast majority of settlers are in Judea and Samaria. West Bank) law-abiding citizens, many of whom are currently fighting in the Gaza Strip in defense of Israel, he said.
It is noteworthy here that the American Administration has announced last April that it was considering imposing sanctions on the ‘Netizah Yehuda’ brigade, which angered Netanyahu and put him out of his way, and he did not find a way to deal with the matter other than resorting to lies and evasion when he pledged to the American to address the issue of those responsible for the acts of violence in which the battalion was involved, which prompted this administration to review its procedures.
But last week, the same people were promoted, according to a report prepared by CNN and widely published. One of the commanders of that battalion, Mattai Shevah, who was reprimanded following the murder of Omar Asaad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American citizen, who died after the battalion’s soldiers assaulted him, handcuffed him, and left him to a tragic fate, was promoted to deputy commander of the ‘Kfir’ Brigade. As for Netai Okshi, whose soldiers were documented happily beating a Palestinian and his 15-year son while they were tied to the car, he was recently appointed to the position of deputy commander of the “Gaash” formation, as for Shlomo Shirin, whose soldiers opened heavy fire on a school in which there were thousands of displaced people, he serves as the commander of the Nahal Brigade.
On another level, the Ministry of Transportation and the occupation municipality in Jerusalem announced last week that they had completed the expansion of Route 60 ‘the tunnel street south of occupied Jerusalem’, which extends from the north of the city to the outskirts of Hebron to connect the city to settlements in the south of the West Bank within the Israeli strategic plan to establish ‘Greater Jerusalem’ by building a network of tunnels, roads and infrastructure to expand the settlement blocs, especially the “Gush Etzion” bloc, which includes 14 Israeli colonies, and increasing the number of settlers in this settlement bloc to accommodate 60,000 settlers by 2028, and imposing a settlement reality that prevents the division of Jerusalem and at the same time undermines the idea of the two-state solution through a number of settlement projects, expanded the settlement plan in the region by about 3,500 new settlement units in clear exploitation of the brutal war waged by the occupying state against the Gaza Strip.
The occupation municipality is investing about one billion shekels in the project of these tunnels on Route 60, with two new tunnels, each about 900 meters long, in the southern section ‘in the direction of Jerusalem’, and two other tunnels, each 300 meters long, in the northern section, in the direction of ‘Gush Etzion’, with two travel lanes and two bridges to connect the tunnels are part of a joint project between the Ministry of Transportation and the Jerusalem Municipality, implemented by the Moria Municipality Company, according to Transportation Minister Miri Regev, the project acquires strategic importance as it is a project that opens the southern entrance gate to Jerusalem and connects it to the settlements of Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba, Efrat, Beitar Illit, and Hebron.
In a new escalation of settlement activity, the Occupation Authorities announced last Tuesday the conversion of 441 dunums into “state land” in the area of the ‘Nili’ and ‘Niaala’ settlements, west of the city of Ramallah. According to the Civil Administration, the confiscation of these lands paves the way for the construction of housing units in the ‘Nili’ settlement and the industrial zone in the “Niaala” settlement, and the expansion of the areas of other settlements in this area. The “Civil Administration” has announced on the second of this July, the completion of Procedures to confiscate 23,572 thousand dunams and classify them as “state lands,” then claiming that these are ‘public lands not owned by anyone,’ and then it becomes possible to establish settlement projects there. The Occupation Authorities have implemented the declaration of these Palestinian lands as “state lands” on three counts: Phase. The first stage was during the term of the previous government headed by Naftali Bennett, during which 3,500 dunams were legalized 4 months ago, 8,500 dunums. At the beginning of this month, it was announced that another 12,000 dunums had been legalized. This number represents nearly half the area of land declared as state land since the Oslo Accords in 1993.
It is expected that the ‘Supreme Planning Council” in the Civil Administration will push forward the construction of 5,300 settlement housing units in this area, and 600 other housing units to be marketed in other areas in the West Bank, after 152 housing units were approved in the ‘Negohot settlement’ in the Hebron area, 260 housing units in the Jordan Valley settlements, 140 housing units in the ‘Kiryat Arba settlement’, and 186 housing units in the ‘Elon Moreh settlement’ near Nablus.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Forcing Moh’d Obaid to own self-demolish his house in the town of Al-Issawiya to avoid paying heavy financial fines if the occupation municipality did so.
- Demolishing 4 facilities in the Hizma town: a gas station, a tire shop, a grocery store, and a vehicle wash, and a residential building in the Wadi Al-Joz Neighborhood consisting of 3 residential apartments belongs to citizen Nader Jaber, and was built in the 1990s after citizen Jaber refused to forcibly demolish it, then obliged him to pay a NIS 1,000,000 for that.
- Seizing a house. It belongs to the Jerusalemite citizen Jawad Abu Nab in the Batn al-Hawa Neighborhood in the town Silwan, noting that the occupation court issued a decision to displace the families of Abu Naab, Al-Rajabi, and Ghaith from the neighborhood last week, based on a claim from the “Ateret Cohenim Settlement Association” that 5 dunams and 200m2 of the neighborhood’s land belong to the Jews since 1881.
Hebron:
- Erecting 3 mobile homes in the Al-Rakeez area in Musafer Yatta to expand the “Avigal” settlement, while the occupation forces demolished a water well and an agricultural room belonging to the Al-Ja’bari family in the “Ein Al-Shunar” area in the village of Birin, east of Hebron, and a 100-meter-long cement wall, uprooted trees and crops, and destroyed the fence and doors surrounding the land, and house of Hazem Abu Shkhidem, in the “Farsh Al-Hawa” area, and a water well in the same area belonging to Jaber’s family.
Bethlehem:
- Demolishing 5 houses, four of which belonged to the bros. Ahmed, Tariq, Raeda, and Taghreed Abu Al-Tin. Each house has an area of 100m2, and the fifth belonged to the citizen Fadi Abu Rizk, with an area of 85m2 under the pretext of building without a license, and two agricultural rooms in the village of Marah Mualla. The area of each one is 40m2 under the pretext of not having a license.
- Storming the “Al-Makhrour” area in Beit Jala, and gathered near Al-Amal School at the western entrance to the city, raising the flags of the occupying state, noting that they have previously seized areas of the land of the “Al-Makhrour” area and established a settlement outpost on it.
Ramallah:
- Establishing a new settlement outpost east of the city of Ramallah, where they set up tents and placed barbed wire over lands belonging to the Barqa village.
- Attacking bearing Palestinian vehicles near the entrance of the Shuqba village.
Nablus:
- Burning large areas of citizens’ lands in 6 areas, which led to the damaging of dozens of olive trees and large areas of agricultural crops. They attacked Bedouin homes in Wadi Yasuf, near the eastern village of Laban, and threw stones at them.
- Storming the Ssbastia town, and attacked the water well feeding villages northwest of Nablus with the aim of seizing the water there.
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles with stones west of Nablus, near the Taneeb Junction, causing damage to some of them, and to a house in the vicinity of Jabal Subeih in Beita. They removed the barbed wire around the house and demanded the residents to evacuate.
- Seizing a bulldozer in the village of Beit Dajan that was working in land reclamation in that area.
- Attacking the Huwara town, south of Nablus, prevented residents from rehabilitating their commercial store that included a bakery that the occupation forces have closed last October. They also attacked citizens’ vehicles and threw stones at them on the road near the “Yitzhar” settlement.
Salfeet:
- Bulldozing large areas of citizens’ lands in the Zohr Sobh area, belongs to the lands of the Sarta and Bedia towns, west of the governorate, with the aim of extending water lines for the benefit of settlements at the expense of citizens’ lands, in conjunction with extensive bulldozing works for the same purpose in the lands of Kifl Haris, northwest of Salfeet, and Wadi Qana, which belongs to Salfeet.
- Notifying the evacuation of three houses in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan in preparation for their demolition, belonging to the families of the martyr, Abd al-Rahman Mar’i and the citizens Ibrahim Mar’i and Anas Azmi Mar’i, in the eastern region of the town.
Jordan Valley:
- Demolishing 2 houses in the Al-Duyuk Al-Tahta area, west of the city of Jericho, under the pretext of building without a license, one of them belonged to Abdul Raouf Izriqat, and the other to Al-Tahan family.
- Assaulting a young man in the lands of Al-Auja Spring, and destroyed his vehicle, as a result, he sustained wounds and bruises. This was amid the presence of the Israeli occupation forces.
- Painting flag of Israel on the Al-Auja Spring’ wall, and provoked citizens, who came to get water for themselves and their livestock, and through repeated incursions into the Al-Auja Spring, the settlers seek to gradually impose control over the water to deprive citizens of benefiting from it, as well as a means of pressure to forcibly transfer Bedouin Communities in the region.
