An order was
signed recently by the Israeli commander of the military’s Central Command,
Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, delineating jurisdiction for a new settlement north of
Al-Ubediya town, east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
اضافة اعلان
The first phase of
the settlement will include 3,600 housing units on about 417 dunams for the
religious-nationalist public, the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now
said.
“In the second
phase, the settlement is intended to expand to an additional 2,000 dunams and
another 10,000 housing units for the Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) population,” it
added in a statement.
Israeli
authorities have already contracted planners and architects to prepare plans
for the new settlement at a cost of approximately 2.7 million shekels
($751,000).
According to Peace
Now, the new settlement is an implementation of an earlier government decision
in February of last year to establish nine new settlements in the West Bank.
Earlier another
order was signed by Maj. Gen. commander Yehuda that will allow an illegal
outpost in the occupied West Bank to become a vital , big urban
settlement.
The MitzpehYehuda outpost, which covers 50 dunams of land, will become a city named Mishmar Yehuda covering an area of 417 dunams (104 acres).
Around 3,600
houses will be built in the settlement, which would eventually have the
potential to host 13,000 settlers, according to Haaretz .
However, a
controversial Israeli cabinet decision was adopted last year to 'legalize' nine
West Bank outposts.
Besides, the
orders follow the declaration by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on
22 February for the construction of over
3,300 new houses in the West Bank settlements in "response"
to an attack by
three Palestinian gunmen who killed an Israeli man at a checkpoint near the Ma'aleh
Adumim settlement.
Smotrich announced
that the Israeli government would submit plans for the construction of
2,350 housing units in Ma'aleh Adumim, 300 in Keidar, and 694 in
Efrat.
"Our enemies
know that any harm to us will lead to more construction and more development
and more of our hold all over the country," Smotrich wrote on X,
formerly Twitter.
The Israeli NGO
Peace Now has released a report recording an "unprecedented" increase
in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank since October 7.
The report
recorded nine "settlement outposts" and 18 new roads for settlers in
only the first three months of the Israeli war on Gaza.
The NGO also
reported that the ongoing war in Gaza was being exploited by
settlers to create a de facto situation on the ground, aiming to expand their
control over larger parts of Area C - an area in the West Bank with a high
concentration of settlements.
The population of
Israeli settlers in the West Bank grew nearly 3% in 2023, according to a recent report by the pro-settler
website westbankjewishpopulationstats.com based
on population statistics from the Israeli government.
The report,
released last February by the pro-settler group, found the settler population
jumped to 517,407 as of December 31, from 502,991 a year earlier.
This year’s report
predicted “accelerated growth” in the coming years and that the settler
population in the West Bank will exceed 600,000 before 2030.
However, the
report did not include population figures for East Jerusalem, where more than
200,000 Israelis live in neighborhoods that Israel considers to be part of its
capital, but which the Palestinians and the international community views as
illegal settlements.
On its part , the
Israeli watchdog group Terrestrial Jerusalem said that since the start of the
Israel-Gaza war on October 7, three plans were either approved or are about to
be approved for Jewish housing in East Jerusalem.
Terrestrial
Jerusalem called the speed of approval processes over the last few months
“frenetic.”
The occupied
West Bank, has seen a sharp rise in settler’s violent raids and incidents
against Palestinians since October 7.
Settler violence
is not an isolated incident but rather a part of an organized and financed
strategy by the Israeli authorities to dispossess Palestinians of their lands
in the Occupied Territories, and to undermine any potential political solution.
Currently, about
three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, alongside
490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are deemed illegal under
international law.
Since 7 October
2023 and as of 1 February 2024, OCHA has recorded 494 Israeli settler attacks
against Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian casualties (49 incidents),
damage to Palestinian-owned property (388 incidents), or both casualties and
damage to property (57 incidents).
However , in 2023,
1,264 incidents involving Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem resulted in Palestinian casualties, property damage or both. Some 945
of these incidents resulted in damage, 165 resulted in casualties and 154 resulted
in both.
This is the
highest number of settler attacks against Palestinians in any given year since
OCHA started recording incidents involving settlers in 2006.
Repeated waves of
violence by settlers, often backed by the army, have led to the displacement of
1,208 Palestinians, including 586 children, across 198 households.
Supported by the
Israeli security forces , aided and abetted by the government, settler violence
remains a central part of the Israeli state’s policy and plan to ethnically
cleanse the occupied Palestinian territory in order to establish full
sovereignty over it and enable settlement expansion .
Despite the
clarity of international law on the illegality of the settlements, Israel has
provided the political conditions and economic incentives, as well as
infrastructural support, for the growth of more than 300 settlements in the
West Bank.
Prominent human
rights organization B’Tselem has described settler violence as a form of state
violence, through which Israel can “have it both ways”. It can claim that this
is violence carried out by private individuals – a few “bad apples” among the
settlers – and deny the role of its own security forces, all while benefiting
from its consequences – the expulsion of Palestinians from their land.
Under
international law, Israel as the occupying power has the obligation to protect
the Palestinian population. Nonetheless, settler violence takes place openly
and in total disregard of the laws of war and human rights.
The fact that
Israeli security forces have accompanied and protected settlers on their
violent rampages clearly indicates they actively ignore legal responsibilities
towards the occupied population.
Settler violence
has been adopted by the Israeli state as a tool to accelerate the pace of
Palestinian displacement. Once key portions of occupied Palestine are cleansed
of the Indigenous Palestinian communities, then the settlement enterprise can
proceed unabated and unopposed and annexation can also take place.
The International
Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan has confirmed that his office is
accelerating investigations in relation to settler violence, stressing that
“Israel has a fundamental responsibility as an occupying power” to investigate
and prosecute these crimes and prevent their reoccurrence and ensure justice.
The international community must clearly and without
hesitation ascribe settler violence to the Israeli state, and hold its
officials to account in the appropriate international forums for not
taking decisive action to prevent it, stop it, and reverse its effects.
Israel must not
continue to have a free pass when it comes to violating the rights of
Palestinian civilians living under its occupation.
Najla M. Shahwan is a Palestinian author, researcher, and freelance journalist. She has published thirteen books and a children's story collection. She also received two prizes from the Palestinian Union of Writers.
Disclaimer:
Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Jordan News' point of view.
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