Israeli settlement expansion continues unabated in the West Bank

The Israeli occupation authorities continue to escalate settlement expansion in the West Bank in implementation of the occupation’s colonialist annexation scheme amid the international community’s refraining from enforcing the international legitimacy resolutions which affirm the illegality of the Israeli settlement building activities and call for stopping them.

The Israeli settlement building operations take new dimension that would prevent the establishment of the Palestinian State, as they are not confined to the plans to build new settlement units, but also to build an infrastructure that connect between the settlements built on the land of the West Bank and those built on the Palestinian lands occupied in 1948,  the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements said in its weekly report published on Saturday.

 The report made it clear that despite the US administration’s claim that it is putting pressure on the occupation authorities to stop settlements, the latter announced a plan to establish 3144 new settlement units to expand 30 settlements built on Palestinian lands in the West Bank, especially those built on the lands of Salfit, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Nablus.

According to the report the occupation also announced plans to establish settlement outposts of the lands of the towns of Umm Burj, Ithna, Surif and Al Jaba’a in Bethlehem. It also began establishing a settlement outpost in the old city of Al-Khalil.

The report also said that the occupation authorities announced a plan to increase the number of Israeli settlers in the Jordan valley area in the West Bank, pointing out that the number of settlers increased over the past few years to 13,000 distributed on 38 settlements.

Moreover, the report said that the occupation razed 10 dunums of the Palestinians’ land planted with olive trees in Khillet Al-Nahleh area in Bethlehem. It also razed the vital road connecting between Ya’bud town and Mreha district in Jenin city which affect the movement of school and university students as well as farmers.

The report pointed out that the occupation is trying to systematically destroy the roads that connect between the Palestinian cities and towns.

The report added that the occupation forces demolished houses in Al-Quds and Al-Khalil cities and delivered notifications for demolishing several houses and agricultural facilities in the towns of Silwan and beit Sourik in Al-Quds and in the villages of Al-Minieh and Artas in Bethlehem.

According to the report, the Israeli settlers continued their attacks on the West Bank cities and towns under the protection of the occupation forces. They also prevented farmers from reaching their lands and uprooted more than 300 olive trees in the town of Al-Mazra’a Al-Gharbiya in Ramallah as well as 100 olive trees in jaloud town and looted the olive crops from the lands of the Yetma, Qaryout Al-Naqoura, Sebastia and Deri Sharaf towns in Nablus.

The settlers also seized swathes of Palestinian land in the city of Ariha in the northern Jordan valley in preparation for building a settlement outpost there.

Hamda Mustafa