clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Israel razes Palestinian land to expand settlement

July 20, 2017 at 12:38 pm

Israeli bulldozers can be seen demolishing Palestinian homes on 2 February 2016 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Apaimages]

Israeli bulldozers razed Palestinian land near the village of Jalud, south of occupied Nablus, yesterday morning to expand an Israeli settlement, Palestinian sources said.

The head of Jalud village council, Abdullah Haj Mohammed, said the Israeli bulldozers flatten land confiscated by the Israeli authorities 27 years ago in order to build a new neighbourhood in an illegal settlement.

He told Quds Press that the land is adjacent to the settlement of Shvut Rachel which is built on Palestinian land, southwest of the village of Jalud.

He pointed out that the new settlement neighbourhood will increase the suffering of the villagers, who have lost large areas of their land. A number of settlements and outposts have since been built on the land.

Read: Expel 100,000 Palestinians and annex settlements

The Israeli authorities stepped up the construction of settlements in the Palestinian territories after the Israeli Knesset ratified a law allowing the confiscation of private Palestinian land in the West Bank for the purpose of building settlements.

#Settlement 

The law bans the Israeli courts from taking any decisions to dismantle illegal settlements and allows them only to compensate Palestinians with money or alternative plots of land.

On 23 December 2016, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Israel to immediately and fully halt its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.