"The Israeli occupation authorities looted more than 90 percent of the Palestinian valley area," Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, said Monday.
This came during a press conference following a field tour organized by the Palestinian Ministry of Information in partnership with the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department for local and international media. Erekat said that "this area constitutes about 28.5 per cent of the area of ​​the West Bank, and it made profits from the policy of looting and seizure amounted to 450 million dollars." He added: "The greatest danger when talking about settlement projects in the Jordan Valley, is the attempt by Israel to impose its policies and justify them with security pretexts and excuses to strangle the Palestinians." The Executive Committee Secretary accused the Israeli government of working to promote settlement in the Jordan Valley, in partnership with several international companies, to steal water and Palestinian land. He continued that "the occupation control of the Jordan Valley comes within the framework of a complete plan within what is known as (deal of the century), which aims to strike the establishment of a viable Palestinian state and anything Palestinian." He called Erekat, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to issue a database on the control of "Israel" on the land in the Jordan Valley, whatever the size of the pressure on the Council from the US administration and others. It is noteworthy that the area of ​​the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea, amounting to about 1.6 million dunams (dunum thousand square meters) and equivalent to about 30 percent of the West Bank. The area of ​​arable land in the Jordan Valley is 280,000 dunums, of which the Palestinians exploit 50,000, while Israeli settlers exploit 27,000 dunams, according to a previous report published by the Palestinian government media office. Tel Aviv views the region as a security and economic reserve and says it wants to maintain its security presence in any solution with the Palestinians.
