The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements said that the Israeli government intends in the coming days to approve a plan to build 2,200 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank, including outposts, in exchange for permitting the construction of 1,000 Palestinian homes in Area C, in the first step taken by the (Bennett) government during the era of US President (Joe Biden).
In a weekly report on settlements, the office confirmed that this settlement scheme is considered the largest since the inauguration of the new Israeli government, explaining that these new settlement units will be distributed as follows: 58 settlement units in “Beit El” settlement, 286 in “Brakhah,” and 292 in “Beit El.” Kfar Etzion, 83 in Karnei Shomron, 42 units in Givat E’ev, 105 in Alon Shivut, 28 in Barkan, 14 in Ma’aleh Makhmach, and 1,315 units in separate areas in the occupied West Bank, not only in the occupied West Bank. Settlement blocs, but in places that are isolated (from major settlements) in the West Bank, including the so-called random outposts.
mislead and deceive
He added that in order to cover up this step and as part of the policy of deceiving international public opinion, the Israeli government leaked news that the occupation authorities would allow the Palestinians to build 800-1,000 apartments in Area C, which are directly under Israeli control, despite the fact that this announcement It may end, as in the past, with the construction of buildings that do not exceed the fingers of one hand, which means that it is prepared in advance for marketing inside the Palestinian territories and for external marketing and not for implementation, especially since the Palestinians have previous experiences in this field. Everyone remembers that the occupation government headed by (Benjamin Netanyahu) had announced the year 2019 announced allowing the construction of 900 housing units for the Palestinians, but in 2020 it became clear that the Civil Administration allowed the construction of only 6 housing units, not more. Everyone also reminds that the occupation authorities had announced in 2017 the approval to build 5,000 housing units for the Palestinians, but the move was frozen by the then Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu).
It is noteworthy that the occupation authorities, according to identical local and international sources, including the latest reports of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have demolished, since the beginning of 2021, at least 421 Palestinian-owned buildings, including 130 donor-funded buildings, or confiscated them. or forced their owners to demolish them, which led to the displacement of 592 people, including about 320 children, throughout the West Bank, representing an increase of 24 percent in the number of targeted buildings and an increase of nearly 110 percent in the targeting of donor-funded buildings and a height of more than 50 percent of the displaced population, compared to the corresponding period of the year 2020, and since the beginning of the year more than 81 buildings have also been demolished in East Jerusalem, since the beginning of this year, which has doubled the risks of evacuating hundreds of Palestinians from homes where they have resided for decades in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood And the town of Silwan for the benefit of the settlers and their settlement associations, whose activity has increased in JerusalemEast in an unprecedented way.
In the same context, the West Bank Settlements Council said that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett did not approve of settlement building plans that his army minister, Benny Gantz, had agreed to implement. The settlers feel resentment about Bennett´s policies, especially in the wake of what was published about allowing the construction of 1,000 housing units for Palestinians in Area C, and they decided to protest in front of Bennett´s office and push him to oppose this approach.
The Jewish National Fund,
on the other hand, intends to implement a dangerous settlement scheme that aims to significantly expand settlements in the West Bank, and expel hundreds and perhaps thousands of Palestinians from their homes, especially in East Jerusalem, where 100 million shekels have been allocated to register land in Israel and the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem. . The JNF Board of Directors will approve this plan in the coming days, possibly on August 19.
In this context, the Israeli "Peace Now" movement said that the Jewish National Fund will be transformed into the National Fund for settlers. Doing so by the JNF would lead to the registration process leading to widespread dispossession of Palestinians, as in the case of Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan. The project aims to search in the records of the Jewish National Fund for lands and transactions that have not been completed or registered in the Land Registry Office, and an attempt to complete and register them. Among those files that will be examined and recorded, there are about 530 files in the West Bank and 2050 files in East Jerusalem with an area of ​​2,500 dunams that were purchased or were under acquisition by the Jewish National Fund before 1948.
Taysir Khaled, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements, had called for declaring the “Jewish National Fund” a terrorist organization in light of its settlement activities in the Palestinian territories occupied by the 1967 aggression and in light of the Fund’s board of directors directing the registration of lands and real estate in The West Bank, including Jerusalem, as belonging to it or to Jewish ownership, whether before 1948 or after 1967, with all the risks that this entails from a large expansion of settlements and the dangers of expelling hundreds and perhaps thousands of Palestinians from their homes, similar to what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and other neighborhoods East Jerusalem.
Huge road construction
The settlement machine does not stop working to create the appropriate conditions for large-scale annexation of West Bank lands to the occupying state, through the construction of new roads that mainly serve the settlers and allow linking the settlements to the interior areas without passing through Palestinian residential areas in the West Bank, as is the Hawara bypass road in the Nabis governorate. and 45th Street in the Jerusalem Governorate, and the other eight bypass streets. The residents of the villages of Jaba, Qalandia, Kafr Aqab, al-Ram, Mikhmas and Barqa filed objections against the bypass road scheme “45” on their lands, which serves the settlements and settlers. They said in the objection that the use of this road is intended to be restricted only to the movement of settlers from the West Bank towards the Palestinian interior, ignoring the needs of Palestinian citizens and in conflict with the laws and regulations in force in the areas under occupation, as Road No. 45 is planned in order to serve the settler population. At the expense of the Palestinians, who are considered a protected population under international law. This project is objected to by anti-settlement associations in Israel, who assert that the establishment of settlements and the systems surrounding them have disrupted and continue to disrupt the lives of Palestinians in a way that affects all aspects of their lives.
In the context of the ongoing Judaization operations in Jerusalem, the occupation authorities issued a secret tender for the construction of the Mughrabi Gate Bridge, and contractors who submitted bids for the construction of the Mughrabi Gate Bridge, which connects the Al-Buraq Wall plaza to the Temple Mount and is used to storm the courtyards of the occupation police and settlers, the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, were asked to sign an item Confidential regarding the construction of the bridge, and the secret clause stated, “I hereby pledge to maintain complete and absolute confidentiality of confidential information and everything related to or stemming from it, and not to publish or disclose in any way whatsoever before any person or body, and all this for an unlimited period,” according to the Yedioth newspaper. Ahronot. The tender was issued by the so-called Western Wall Heritage Fund, which is responsible for the Al-Buraq Wall by the Israeli Prime Minister´s Office. Annex (H) in the tender stipulated the obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the entire tender. The Western Wall Heritage Fund commented, “We are working under the directives of the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Judaization operations in Hebron
In the city of Hebron, Judaization operations are also taking place. The occupation authorities have started implementing a Judaization project that includes corridors, squares, and an elevator to facilitate settlers´ storming of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. The occupation aims to seize approximately 300 square meters of the mosque’s courtyards and facilities, and 2 million shekels have been allocated so far to finance the Judaization project. This project is implemented by the Engineering and Construction Department of the Israeli Ministry of Security and under the supervision of the so-called “civil administration” of the occupation army, and is expected to last about six months. The Judaization project includes the construction of a corridor and a road to facilitate the access of settlers, pedestrians and their cars, to the Ibrahimi Mosque, as well as the construction of an elevator for the same purpose. Last April, the Israeli courts rejected a Palestinian request to freeze the construction of an electric elevator in the mosque.
