Israel plans to displace Palestinians from 154 towns and villages in Al-Aghwar area
The Palestinian Presidency spokesman, has declared that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to build 800 new units in the illegal settlements is completely condemnable.
“It’s an attempt to contest time before the departure of the current American administration, which blindly supported the Israeli government’s attempts to steal the Palestinian land,” Abu Rudeineh said in an official statement released yesterday.
He added that “Netanyahu’s frantic attempts to seize more land of the state of Palestine won’t create any legitimacy, and the Palestinian people will not allow him to use his election campaign to steal more Palestinian land.”
The year 2020 was one of the most prolific years for illegal settlement building.
Chairman of the Commission of Resisting Wall and Settlement, Walid Assaf, made it clear that that the new settlement units will be built in strategic areas with the aim of fragmenting the Palestinian lands and to destroy the Palestinian economy.
“500 settlement units will be built on lands in 6 towns located to the east of Nablus with the aim of isolating this city from Al-Aghwar and to divide its countryside into parts to isolate them completely from the occupied West Bank,” he added.
Assaf went on to say that the Israeli occupation authorities built 20 new settlement units, uprooted 12.000 trees and destroyed 879 Palestinian establishments last year.
“The Israeli occupation authorities plan to displace Palestinians from 154 towns and villages in Al-Aghwar area which constitute one-third of the West Bank’s area. This means a new Palestinian Nakba,” he asserted.
For his part, an official in Charge of Settlement Resistance File in the North West Bank Ghassan Daghlas said that the Israeli occupation authorities built 40.000 settlement units during Trump’s Presidency and opened roads to connect the settlements and to tighten their grip on the Palestinians.
Yesterday, Netanyahu ordered that plans be advanced to construct approximately 800 settlement units in the occupied West Bank.
Basma Qaddour