A Palestinian human rights report has accused the Israeli Occupation of confiscating approximately 160,000 acres of Palestinian land during 2009 by abusing various laws, such as the Barren Land Law and the laws on closed areas and fallow land.
A report issued by the International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights to commemorate Land Day (March 30) revealed that the Israeli Occupation confiscates Palestinian land on various pretexts, such as security reasons, building the apartheid wall and expanding Israeli settlements and the roads within them.
The Foundation stated that the widest and most notable confiscation operations took place in the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus, and Al-Aghwar. It pointed out that the occupation seized 3,000 acres of land in the village of Yatta located in Hebron, south of the West Bank. The reason behind the confiscation was to annex this land to the settlements of Judea Metzadot Yehuda and Carmel.
The Occupation also confiscated 25 acres of land from the town of Bet for the expansion of the Karmei Tzur settlement in addition to 4 acres of private land owned by the citizen Mohamed Gadei Allami in order to establish an electricity network in the region. It also confiscated 1,770 acres of land from the villages of Artas and Al-Khader for the purpose of annexing this land to the settlement of Efrata in Bethlehem.
According to the report, the Occupation’s authorities also seized 940 acres of land from the village of Gabaa , on the pretext that this land was located within a closed Israeli military area. It then confiscated an additional 24 acres from the villages of Housan and Nehalin and annexed them to the Gush Etzion settlement district.
The report also stated that the Occupation authorities seized around 50 acres from the village of Asira Al-Qibliya so as to establish a new settlement area and annex more areas to the settlement of Yitzhar, south of Nablus and in the north of the occupied West Bank. It also confiscated tens of acres from Kafr Kalil and Burin last July so as to carry out new settlement expansions around the city.
The report said that in Jenin, the occupation’s authorities confiscated 300 acres from the village of Yaabud in order to establish a new settlement as well as 115 more acres from the same village in order to expand the settlement of Shaked, which was previously established on the village land.