Israeli occupation continues to loot Palestinian lands with US support
In its weekly report published on Saturday, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements said that some Israeli officials have revealed that the US President Joe Biden promised the Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, during a meeting in Washington on the 27th of August, that the US administration won’t practice any pressure to stop the Israeli settlement building activities in The West Bank.
Biden’s remarks encouraged the Israeli occupation to loot more Palestinian lands for settlement expansion in occupied Al-Quds and the rest of the West Bank areas in a blatant violation of international legitimacy resolutions which affirm the illegality of the Israeli settlement building activities and call for stopping them.
In a direct response to Biden’s promise, the Israeli authorities announced a plan to build 3400 new settlement units on an area of 12,443 dunums of Palestinian land to the east of occupied Al-Quds.
According to the report, the plan also includes establishing settlement roads connecting the new settlement outpost to a settlement that has been already built on the Palestinians’ lands in the east of Al-Quds, and leading to the settlements built to the west of the city.
Some 7000 Palestinians residing in the village of Al-Khan Al-Ahmar and several other villages in Al-Quds will be besieged and may be displaced because of this plan, the report clarified.
The report went on to say that the occupation authorities continue digging works to widen Al-Magharbeh Gate Bridge which leads to Al-Aqsa Mosque with the aim of increasing its capacity to help more settlers storm the mosque.
In addition, the report made it clear that the occupation is expanding a settlement outpost built in Al-Shuhada Street in downtown Al-Khalil city to impose a fait accompli and create a geographic connection among a number of settlement outposts built in the heart of the city. These activities will separate several villages and towns from each other and deprive many Palestinians from reaching their lands, the report added.
The occupation also seized swathes of Palestinian land in the town of Barta’a, to the south of Jenin with the aim of establishing a new settlement, the report said, pointing out that the occupation forces demolished four houses in the towns of Beit Hanina and Jabal Al-Mukabber in Al-Quds, two houses in the town of Douma, to the southeast of Nablus and three houses in Khirbet Abziq in Toubas city.
The report stressed that the Israeli settlers continued to attack Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank under the protection of the occupation forces. The settlers seized 24 dunums of land in the village of Deir Al-Hatab in Nablus, stormed the old city in Al-Khalil as well as the village of Ras Al-Tin, to the east of Ramallah and Bourin village in Nablus and attacked the Palestinians’ houses and properties there.
Hamda Mustafa