A settlement scheme in Mount Scopus in occupied Jerusalem dismembers the city

“Separating the Old City from the north of occupied Jerusalem and closing the road between it and Ramallah” is a new settlement goal that the Israeli occupation seeks to implement by establishing two thousand settlement units on Mount Scopus. 

The mountain located north of Jerusalem enjoys an important geographical location as it extends over an area of 840 dunums, at a height of 850 meters above sea level.

Fakhri Abu Diab, a member of the SilwanTown Lands Defense Committee, explained that the new scheme, in its early stages, would seize 150 dunums of Mount Scopus lands to expand a settlement perched in the western region of Al-Isawiya town and connected with Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood from the eastern side.

Abu Diab indicated that the danger of the plan lies in the fact that it aims to separate the Old City from northern Jerusalem, close the road connecting it with Ramallah, complete the plan to displace the residents of Sheikh Al-Jarrah neighborhood, in addition to creating a geographical connection with a settlement outpost in the Mufti Palace area in Jerusalem, in which the occupation recently established 56 A settlement unit, which means creating a settlement belt surrounding the Old City and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. 

Director of Al-Quds International Center Hassan Khater stated that since 1967 the Israeli occupation has seized 60 percent of the area of Mount Scopus and demolished, during the past two years, about 78 Palestinian facilities there. 

Khater said that the new plan aims to seize the rest of its area and Judaize it completely. 

Khater explained that the occupation is trying, through this plan, to complete the settlement belt, which starts from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood through the Mount of Olives and the outskirts, to find three settlement belts that wrap around the Old City and Al-Aqsa in order to suffocate and besiege the Old City.  

The Director General of the Department of Maps and Surveys in the Orient House in occupied Jerusalem, Khalil Al-Tafkaji indicated that the settlement occupation scheme on Mount Scopus is part of its plans to Judaize Jerusalem and bring about a dangerous demographic change in it and empty it from the Palestinian presence. 

The Coordinator of the Popular Committees Against Settlements and the Wall Salah Al-Khawaja pointed out that the occupation is trying to completely separate Jerusalem from Bethlehem and Ramallah and is intensifying the operations of demolishing houses and seizing lands in the villages and towns of the West Bank. 

Al-Khawaja called on the international community to take urgent action to save the city of Jerusalem and stop the occupation’s attempts to Judaize it and implement the resolutions of international legitimacy, foremost of which is UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of 2016, which affirms the illegality of settlements. 

Inas Abdulkareem