The Israeli occupation is expected to approve, tomorrow, Wednesday, the seizure of 68 dunums of citizens´ lands in the Qalqilya governorate, in favor of a settlement project aimed at expanding a road linking the cities of Qalqilya and Nablus, or the so-called "Street No. 55" According to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on Tuesday.
Haaretz revealed that there is a plan to expand the settlements adjacent to the street, to build 5,650 new settlement units in the next few years.
Commenting on this, Muhammad Abu Al-Sheikh, the official in charge of the settlement file in Qalqilya governorate, explained to Wafa that this decision was issued in 2019, and includes the seizure of about 85 dunums of Qalqilya and Habla lands in the south of the governorate, and the expansion of the aforementioned street to range in width between 60-60 150 metres.
And he indicated that the street is known as “The Nursery Street,” where 14 agricultural nurseries are spread on its sides, employing hundreds of workers, and from which about 500 families live, in addition to the presence of four artesian wells.
Abu Al-Sheikh added that the occupation aims, through this settlement project, to end the relationship between the city of Qalqilya and the town of Habla, by seizing the agricultural lands between them, and it also opens the way to link the city of “Kfar Saba” within the 48 lands with the settlement of “Alfe Menashe” located on the lands of Citizens in Qalqilya and Habla, and thus work to abolish the Palestinian presence.
He pointed out that the competent authorities, in addition to 35 citizens of the owners of lands and nurseries, whose lands are threatened with seizure in favor of the settlement project, have submitted objections since the announcement of the decision, through which they were able to reduce the area of ​​lands intended to be seized to 68 dunams, noting that the competent authorities are still following up the file of objections with The so-called “Israeli Supreme Court” after the completion of its consideration by the so-called “Israeli Organization Department”.
Abu Al-Sheikh called for urgent intervention to pressure the occupation to stop this destructive and dangerous decision on Palestinian land.
Haaretz reported that the objections submitted by the owners of the land and the nurseries were rejected, after the so-called “Israeli Higher Planning Council” claimed that it had no powers to implement any settlement related to the nurseries.
The newspaper pointed out that the objections were submitted a year ago, but the decision on them was taken by the so-called “Supreme Planning Council” last Wednesday, and approval for the expansion of the nurseries section will be approved tomorrow, noting that the lawyers of the nurseries owners said that “the decision was taken through lightning and quick measures.” “.
