The Palestinians in Beita village in Nablus step up their resistance against the Israeli occupation plan to build a new settlement

The Palestinians in the village of Beita, southeast of the West Bank city of Nablus, continue with their resistance and struggle to foil the Israeli occupation’s plan to establish a new settlement in this area by which the occupation will entirely seize Jabal Sabih (mount Sabih) area which connects between the north and the center of the West Bank and links three villages in Nablus to each other. The villages are Beita, Qabalan and Yetma.

The occupation hasn’t been able to weaken the resistance of the people of the three villages which has been continuous since last May with the aim of preventing the occupation from building the new settlement. Tens of Palestinians were martyred and some 5000 others were wounded during this period.

 Mousa Hamayel, the Deputy Head of the Council of Beita village, said in a statement to SANA that the occupation has set up tens of mobile caravans on Mount Sabih, whose area is estimated at 840 dunums, in preparation for establishing a settlement that contains hundreds of settlement units and for completing the settlement belts which begin from the village of Za’tara, south of Nablus, till the Jordan valley area with the aim of seizing all the lands located east of Nablus and completely separating the north of the West Bank from its center.

Hamayel pointed out that Beita and the surrounding villages have become surrounded by settlements to witness the daily crimes of settlers, stressing that the battle of the Palestinians in this village will continue until the occupation scheme is aborted.

On his part, Head of the Settlement and Wall Resistance Commission Muayyad Shaaban said that besides circling Beita village with settlements, the occupation has started to set up a several kilometers-long settlement road in the depth of the village to close the south and west of Nablus by settlement belts with the aim of completing the implementation of its annexation scheme.

The Palestinian official in charge of the settlement file in the northernpart of the West Bank, Ghassan Douglas clarified that the occupation’s new settlement building plan aims at imposing new facts on the ground, dividing the city of Nablus into cantons, isolating its villages in order to separate it completely from the center of the West Bank and linking the settlements with each other, thereby cutting the geographical connection between the cities in the north of West Bank and depriving the Palestinians from reaching their lands. 

He pointed out that the occupation plans will not pass as long as the Palestinians’ steadfastness in Jabal Sabih area continues.

On his part, Mustafa Al-Barghouti, the Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, stressed that the international community’s silence over the Israeli crimes of displacing the Palestinian families, demolishing their houses and building more settlements without any kind of accountability, have encouraged the occupation to continue with its war of settlement expansion and Judaization. He stressed that the ongoing Palestinian Intifada in Beita and the surrounding villages will prevent the occupation from establishing the settlement outpost on the top of Mount Sabih.

Hamda Mustafa