Israeli occupation continues to expand settlement building operations in the West Bank amid the international community’s silence: report

More Palestinian lands have been recently confiscated by the Israeli occupation with the aim of expanding its settlement building activities in the West Bank amid the international Community’s silence over the occupation’s flagrant violations of international legitimacy resolutions, particularly the Security Council Resolution No. 2334 which stresses the illegality of the Israeli settlement building operations and calls for halting them immediately.

In its weekly report published on Saturday, the Palestinian Liberation Front’s National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements, said that settlement building operations spread like cancer in the West bank. The Israeli authorities have accelerated the process of seizing Palestinian lands, expanding settlements and establishing settlement roads to link the built settlements to each other amid American silence, international disability and shy European criticism.

 According to the report, the occupation has announced a plan to establish 392 settlement units on the land of the towns of Al-Khuder in Bethlehem, Ramin in Toulkarm and Al-Zaheriya in Al-Khalil. The occupation also seized 1152 dunums of Palestinian land in Nablus, Ramallah and Al-Bireh to expand a number of settlements and razed swathes of land in the south of Madma village in Nablus to expand one of the settlements built there.

The report highlighted the Israeli occupation’s continuous attempts to displace the Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Al-Quds despite international condemnation. The report quoted the UN Chief’s Spokesman Stephane Dujarric as saying during a press conference last week that the United Nations considers all the Israeli settlement operations, including evacuation and house demolition, as illegal according to international law.”

The report also said that the Israeli settlers continue to attack the West Bank towns and cities under the protection of the Israeli occupation. The settlers intensified their raids on the old city and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied Al-Quds and opened fire at unarmed Palestinians in the neighborhood, causing injuries to dozens of them. They also stormed Palestinian agricultural lands in the Baq’a area to the east of Al-Khalil, destroyed crops and attacked the Palestinians’ houses and properties in Farata towns in Qalqilya as well as in Burin and Qusra towns in Nablus. The settlers also seized lands from Jabal Sbeih area in Nablus to establish a settlement outpost and attacked Palestinian vehicles on the road between Nablus and Ramallah, causing injuries to a Palestinian woman and material damage to a number of vehicles.  

Hamda Mustafa