77,000 Jewish settlers to move to new illegal West Bank settlements

Some 77,000 Jewish settlers are due to be relocated to illegal Israeli settlements around the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, an Israeli rights group revealed yesterday.

Quds Press reported Yesh Din saying that the Israeli authorities’ plan aims to turn the illegal settlements of Ma’ale Mikhmas, Rimonim, Psagot and Kochav Ya’ir into residential neighbourhoods.

The settlement plan, Yesh Din said, seeks to connect the new settlement neighbourhoods with Street 60 (Alon Street) from the eastern side, as well as to build around 2,500 new settlement units on an area of 790 dunams (0.79 square kilometres).

According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 6,000 Israeli Jewish settlers are currently living in the four illegal settlements and the settlement base of Mizpah Dani.

The rights group said that in November 2015, the Israeli High Court turned down a petition filed in the name of the Palestinian villages of Mikhmas and Deir Dobwan to demolish a settlement building which was illegally built.

Yesh Din said that the court rejected the petition after the Israeli government had started legalising the settlement base of Mizpah Dani in the same area.