International community’s inaction encourages Israel to continue with its policy of settlement expansion in occupied Palestine

 Five years ago, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution No. 2334 which stresses that the Israeli settlement building activities in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal and calls on Israel to stop these activities. However, this resolution, which Washington abstained from voting on, has not been implemented by the international community, and this has encouraged the Israeli occupation to escalate settlement expansion through confiscating and stealing more lands that belong to the Palestinians to build houses for the Israeli settlers.

In its weekly report published on Saturday, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements said that in violation of the provisions of Resolution No. 2334, the Israeli occupation intensified settlement building, particularly in occupied Al-Quds and the rest of the West Bank areas.

Since the adoption of this resolution in 2016, the occupation has established 280 new settlement outposts that contain more than 26331 settlement units compared to 10331 units established between 20013 and 2016, the report clarified.

 The report went on to say that the Israeli settlers’ violence against the Palestinians has reached unprecedented level, particularly in the West Bank cities of Nablus and Al-Khalil. It pointed out that 84 Palestinians were martyred this year in the West Bank due to settler violence amid the inaction of the international community.

Concerning last week’s Israeli violations, the report said that the occupation forces demolished a house in Jabal Al-Mukabber town in occupied Al-Quds and another house in the town of Nahaleen in Bethlehem. The occupation forces also seized 20 dunums of Palestinian land in Khillet Hassan area in Salfit city and razed agricultural lands in the village of Deir Nizam, west of Ramallah with the aim of expanding settlements, the report added.

According to the report, the Israeli settlers continued last week to attack Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank under the protection of the occupation forces. The settlers stormed into several areas in the cities of Al-Khalil, Nablus, Tulkarm and the northern Jordan Valley and attacked the Palestinians’ houses and properties. They closed the road between Jenin and Nablus cities and attacked the Palestinian vehicles. The settlers also uprooted 300 olive plants and razed swathes of land in Terqoumia town in Al-Khalil to establish a settlement road, the report said.

It added that an Israeli settler driving a car ran over a Palestinian  woman north of Rammallah, leading to her martyrdom.

Hamda Mustafa