New Israeli settlement expansion plan in the West Bank

The Israeli occupation has revealed a new settlement expansion plan in the cities and towns of the West Bank as the occupation forces continue to demolish Palestinian houses and seize lands in occupied Al-Quds with the aim of making a demographic change that serves the Jewish settlers.

In its weekly report on Saturday, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements said that the occupation announced a plan to build 90 settlement units in the heart of the West Bank city of Al-Khalil. The occupation also seized two buildings in Al-Khalil old city and gave them to the settlers in a bid to increase the number of settlers in Al-Khalil.

According to the report, the occupation is also due to start implementing a settlement building plan, it announced in 2018, with the aim of establishing 7000 settlement units on an area of 1200 dunums in Bethlehem. The occupation also seized wide areas of land in the cities of Salfit, Bethlehem and Nablus to boost its settlement building activities.

The occupation also escalated its ethnic cleansing policy towards the Palestinians in occupied Al-Quds, said the report. The occupation forces demolished a house in Silwan town and the minaret of Qal’at Al-Quds Mosque in Bab Al-Khalil area in Al-Quds with the aim of obliterating the Islamic features of the city and judaize it.

The report went on to say that the occupation forces demolished two houses in Nablus and Bethlehem as well as agricultural facilities in the cities of Salfit, Qalqiliya and Ramallah.

Settler attacks on the Palestinians in the West Bank towns and cities also continued, according to the report. The settlers stormed into several neighborhoods in Al-Khalil, Bethlehem and Tulkarm and attacked the Palestinians’ houses and property. They also burnt tens of olive trees and seized 400 dunums of land in several towns in Nablus and Salfit cities, the report clarified.

Hamda Mustafa