Israel launches ethnic cleansing campaign south of Al-Khalil city
The suffering of the Palestinians in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil exacerbates especially as the Israeli occupation has been carrying out a large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign against the locals in Masafer Yatta town manifested in daily attacks on the town to displace the Palestinians and expand the settlements already built there.
In its weekly report issued on Saturday, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements said that 3000 Palestinians may face forcible displacement from the town as a result of the Israeli settlement aspirations.
The report added that the occupation escalates the demolition of Palestinian houses in Masafer Yatta and prevents the Palestinians from expanding their residential areas, forcing them to live in tents that do not protect them from the cold of winter or the summer heat.
In order to put more pressure on the Palestinians, the occupation vandalizes their agricultural lands, deprives them of the basic elements of life and provides protection for settlers to attack them and their properties and sanctities, the report pointed out.
According to the weekly report, the occupation expanded settlement building activities in the West Bank, setting up settlement roads and seizing swathes of Palestinian land to establish settlement outposts.
The report explained the huge damage caused to the Palestinian economy due to the Israeli settlement expansion.
It quoted the annual report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development “UNCTAD” on economic developments in Palestine in 2020 as confirming that the blockade imposed on Gaza Strip and the repeated Israeli attacks on it have caused a catastrophic deterioration in the strip’s economic situation, and that the illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank perpetuates the occupation, undermines all chances of establishing the independent Palestinian state and strips the Palestinian people of their land and natural resources, as well as their inalienable right to development.
Hamda Mustafa