Posted by: John Phoenix
A Palestinian report monitoring the reality of settlements and the attacks of the occupation and its settlers in the occupied West Bank, one year after the Israeli war of extermination on Gaza, reveals the growth of settlements and the operations of seizing and attacking Palestinian lands and properties, including the demolition of buildings and facilities, with the aim of creating a coercive environment that repels Palestinians.
The report of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission states that the occupation and its settlers have seized 52,000 dunams, established 29 pastoral settlement outposts, and carried out 19,440 attacks on Palestinian lands and property, since the beginning of the ongoing war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
وأوضحت الهيئة في تقريرها، اليوم الاثنين، أن سلوك الاحتلال العدواني لم يعد يستهدف المناطق المصنفة (ج) فقط، بل يمتد المناطق المصنفة (ب)، بإعلانات تلغي ما بقي من اتفاقيات سياسية، وتتحدى قرارات الشرعية الدولية، ومجلس الأمن، “الذي يدين الاستيطان، ويدين سلوك الدولة القائمة بالاحتلال في الأرض الفلسطينية”.
The Commission highlighted the most prominent features of the post-war era, which was represented in accelerating the pace of its settlement measures on the ground, as it increased the confiscation of Palestinian lands, and accelerated the study of settlement expansion plans, and the construction of pastoral/agricultural settlement outposts, stressing that all of this is taking place under the cover of war and under the cover of emergency laws that enable settlers to carry weapons, and legislation that deprives Palestinians even of the possibility of defending themselves.
During the war, the occupation authorities and their settlers seized 52,000 dunams of Palestinian land, including 25,000 dunams under the name of modifying the borders of nature reserves, 24,000 dunams through 7 orders declaring so-called “state lands” in the governorates of Jerusalem, Nablus, Ramallah and Bethlehem, and 1,233 dunams through 52 orders to seize land for military purposes aimed at establishing military towers, security roads and buffer zones around the settlements.
The Commission’s report stated that the occupation authorities began to establish buffer zones around the settlements through a series of military orders, the number of which reached 12 buffer zones, most of which are concentrated in the northern West Bank, specifically the cities of Salfit and Nablus, while two zones were imposed in the cities of Ramallah and Al-Bireh and Bethlehem, warning of the extension of this measure to include other settlements, which paves the way for isolating more lands and preventing Palestinian citizens from reaching them.
On the level of settlement construction, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission explained that since October 7, the occupation authorities have studied a total of 182 structural plans for the purpose of building a total of 23,267 settlement units on an area of 14,000 dunams. The process of approving 6,300 of these units has been completed, while 17,000 new settlement units have been deposited.
ولفت إلى أن هذه المخططات تركزت في محافظة القدس بواقع 65 مخططا هيكليا، منها 25 مخططا خارج حدود بلدية الاحتلال، و65 مخططا داخل حدودها، تليها محافظتي سلفيت وبيت لحم بـ22 مخططا هيكليا لكل منها.
The report’s data shows that settlers, under the protection of the occupation army, have established 29 pastoral/agricultural settlement outposts, concentrated in the Hebron Governorate with 8 outposts, Ramallah with 6 outposts, Bethlehem with 4 outposts, and 3 others in Nablus, in addition to paving 7 roads to facilitate the movement of settlers and linking outposts to existing settlements, indicating that the occupation authorities have decided to “settle the status” of 11 settlement outposts and transform them into settlements or settlement neighborhoods affiliated with existing settlements.
According to the report of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, the city of Hebron came at the forefront of the attacks of the occupation and settler militias, with 2,813 attacks out of 16,663 attacks, followed by Jerusalem with 2,771 attacks, and Nablus with 2,322 attacks, while the settlers carried out a total of 2,777 attacks, concentrated in the governorates of Nablus with 771 attacks, and Hebron with 648 attacks, indicating that the attacks of the settlers resulted in the martyrdom of 19 Palestinian citizens.
The report stated that the occupation army and its settlers set a total of 275 fires in Palestinian properties and fields, where 79 fires affected citizens’ lands, fields and crops, while 196 fires targeted citizens’ properties, including residential apartments, buildings, cars and others.
The occupation and its settlers’ measures also led to the displacement of 28 Palestinian Bedouin communities consisting of 292 families, including 1,636 individuals, from their places of residence to other places, in addition to uprooting, destroying and damaging a total of 14,280 trees, most of which were olive trees.
The report indicated that since October 7, the occupation authorities have carried out a total of 1,557 demolitions of Palestinian buildings and facilities, including 373 inhabited homes, 89 uninhabited homes, and 241 agricultural and other facilities, while notifying 630 other facilities of demolition in several Palestinian cities.