Israel to confiscate 616,000 square meters of Palestinian land for settlement expansion in West Bank

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian activist who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said on Monday that Israeli officials had issued a military order aimed at confiscation of some 616 dunams (616,000 square meters) of Palestinian-owned land in the villages of Qaryout and al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, and as-Sawiya town to make room for the expansion of the nearby illegal Eli settlement.

He added that Eli settlement started as a cluster of mobile homes built on a hill in the area back in 1984, and has ever since continued to expand at the expense of expropriation of Palestinian lands to become one of the largest settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, the so-called al-Quds Planning and Building Committee has announced plans for the construction of more than a hundred settler units in the occupied East al-Quds neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, as the Tel Aviv regime is pressing ahead with its attempts to further Judaize the contested holy city and destroy its Islamic and Christian identities.

The committee on Monday gave the green light to Israeli officials to build 135 settler units in Ma'alot Dafna settlement.

Under the new project, a 5-story building with 26 residential units will be demolished and a 12-story building with 135 units will be built in its place.

Emboldened by former US president Donald Trump’s all-out support, Israel has stepped up its illegal settlement construction activities in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which pronounced settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds “a flagrant violation under international law.”

Much of the international community regards the Israeli settler units in the occupied lands as illegal.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East al-Quds as its capital.

The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued illegal settlement expansion.