المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
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By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The national Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements ( nbprs ) stated in its latest weekly report that Judaizing projects in the city of Jerusalem continue at an accelerating pace by the occupying State, aimed at falsifying the geography and history of the city with various means and tricks, which can be described as the effective tools of the occupation authorities working to intensify their size and type through more infrastructure projects related to settlement, sometimes under the guise of public utilities, and at other times under the guise of developing the occupied city, projects behind which lies the strengthening of the settlement presence through the development of infrastructure and facilitating the settlers’ lives and their movements that the occupation has approved and implemented many of them, regardless of the damage they cause to the original inhabitants of the city.
At the same time, the so-called District Planning and Building Committee approved plans for the north of occupied East Jerusalem, which include the construction of hundreds of settlement units and areas of public and commercial buildings and changes in infrastructure and linking them to the ‘Greater Jerusalem – Metropolitan’ scheme on the lands of the villages of Shuafat, Beit Hanina, Beit Safafa, Al Walaja, Ein Karem and Lifta in the settlements of Gilo, Kiryat Menachem, Nabi Yaakov, Ramot, Ramat Shlomo and Pisgat Ze’ev.
These plans improve the use of existing urban infrastructure, and contribute to the access of settlement neighborhoods to the light rail network, The bypass roads linking these settlements with the main road network in West Jerusalem and deep in the interior to connect the Agzar settlements with those in the Palestinian depth in the vicinity of the East Jerusalem settlements. The committee had initially decided to promote two settlement plans in the settlements of “Kiryat Menachem” and “Nevi Yaakov”.
A plan has been deposited that includes 238 settlement units to be built in two 30-storey towers that are combined with a commercial floor, a commercial complex, a pedestrian street, restaurants and cafes in the middle of a settlement complex, and 60 small units near the Red Light Rail-road is expected to operate in 2023. These plans aim to besiege the Palestinian presence with settlement circles from the narrowest to the widest, leading to isolating the villages and neighborhoods of East Jerusalem from its depth in the West Bank and besieging them in a settlement framework that swallows up its lands and prevents its expansion and viability in the future.
According to the plan, the settlements of “Kiryat Menachem, Nabi Yaakov, Ramot, Ramat Shlomo and Pisgat Ze’ev are being expanded by about 189 settlement units during the years 2023-2024, and a large part of them has been approved, and during the middle of the year 2023 3 new plans including the expansion of “Gilo-C” settlement with hundreds of settlement units with an open balance, and construction on the lands of Jerusalem Airport ‘Atarot’ 9,500 settlement units and in the E1 area within the extension of the settlement of “Ma’ale Admim” to close the wider settlement circle, which swallows more than 11% of the area of the West Bank is in favor of the ‘Greater Jerusalem’ project.
The occupation municipality in Jerusalem is also looking to expand the Shimon Hatsadeq outpost and to double the number of settlers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem, through 3 settlement projects in cooperation with the so-called ‘Israel Land Fund’, and in partnership with foreign Jewish investment companies. The settlement plans are driven behind the scenes by the so-called ‘Land of Israel Fund founded by Arieh King, who is the deputy mayor of the occupation in Jerusalem.
Officials in the Fund are very active in seizing Palestinian lands by forging documents and title deeds, preparing fake sale and purchase contracts, and buying land through forged deals. Under the plan, the number of settlers in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood will be doubled through 3 plans for settlement expansion, specifically in the settlement outpost Shimon Hatsadeq as well as the buildings and lands that were seized by the settlement association ‘Nahalat Shimon’, noting that all settlement projects are in the final stage of issuing building permits.
As is the case in the Palestinian Valley is also subjected to a Jewish settlement attack, as the occupation authorities have notified the removal of 30,000 forest trees planted within a pastoral reserve on an area of 1,600 dunums in the Atouf area, southeast of Tubas, which were planted on land belonging to the village council by the Ministry of Agriculture and the village council, with the support of international institutions. The notice was found inside the land last week dated on 10-6-2022, as the occupation authorities work to place the notices inside the lands without delivering them directly, and citizens usually find them during their work in the lands.
Moreover, settlers’ terrorism against the Palestinians has escalated dramatically in the recent period, especially during the past 10 days, as they during their celebrations of their religious holidays carried out more than 100 terrorist attacks against Palestinian citizens.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Hebron:
- Attacking farmers while they were picking olives, in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood in the center of Hebron city.
- Closing the main slope of Khirbet Umm Al-Daraj in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, with earth mounds that connect a number of Bedouin communities with Masafer Yatta and Bani Naim.
- Holding a concert inside the Ibrahimi Mosque under strict protection from the occupation forces, which closed it to worshipers under the pretext of Jewish holidays.
Bethlehem:
- Placing a “caravan” on agricultural land in the “Qanan Dekir” area, with an estimated area of 150 dunums, in the town of Taqu`, southeast of Bethlehem.
- Stapping a foreign solidarity with a knife and a broken leg, as a result of the settlers’ assault on citizens and foreign solidarity activists as part of the “Fazaa” campaign in Kisan village, east of Bethlehem, and uprooted more than 300 olive saplings, and sprayed olive trees with incendiary chemical pesticides. The land area is estimated at 90 dunums.
Ramalah:
- Abusing 7 young men after they were detained near the settlement of “Halamish”, wounding some of them and sustained bruises, while others attacked citizens’ vehicles near the village of Al-Taybeh, northeast of the governorate.
- Injuring a number of citizens in the Singel town while they were plowing their lands that threatened with confiscation.
Nablus:
- Uprooting 120 olive seedlings in the Qabalan town, south of Nablus.
- Seizing a bulldozer that was working to open roads on the eastern side of Beit Dajan, east of Nablus, to facilitate the citizens’ access to their agricultural lands.
- Pursuing farmers and olive pickers at the entrance to the Burqa town, northwest of Nablus.
- Attacking the Orif Secondary School for Boys, burning of the administration room, and smashing the glass of a number of windows.
- Attacking farmers while they were picking olives in Jama’in, south of Nablus, preventing them from picking olives, and forcing them to leave their lands.
- Destroying a water pump feeding the villages of Burin, Madama, Asira al-Qibliya, and Urif, which led to water cuts for more than 20,000 residents.
Tulkarm:
- Attacking farmers while they were picking olives in the lands of “Wadi Salem” area, northeast of the town of Kafin.
- Preventing farmers from the town of Deir al-Ghusun from accessing their lands behind the apartheid wall, in order to harvest olives in the areas of “Karak, Al-Sahel, and Al-Jarushiya,” where the wall isolates 2,400 dunums of agricultural land planted with olives.
Jordan Valley:
- Dismantling solar panels in Khirbet Al-Farisiya and stole them, destroyed water tanks in the Khirbet.
- Bulldozing works to build a Talmudic school and a service complex for settlers in the area.
