Israel to seize 5,000 dumans of West Bank land in Tulkarm

Israeli occupation authorities are seeking to control around 5,000 dunums (five square kilometres) of Palestinian land located in the West Bank village of Tulkarm, a Palestinian Authority (PA) official who monitors settlement activities said yesterday.

Ghassan Daghlas said that the move came in the wake of the continuous work by Israeli forces to raze Palestinian agricultural lands in the area to establish a new illegal settlement in the northern West Bank.

He stressed that Israel is working diligently to seize the 5,000 dunums of land for “occupation and racism purposes”.

Meanwhile, the first home was erected yesterday in the illegal settlement of Amichai, he first officially authorised settlement since 1993.

The settlement is being built to house about 300 hardline settlers from the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona, which was forcibly emptied a year ago after an Israeli court ruled their houses were on privately owned Palestinian land.

Read: Israel settlers set up new settlement outpost near Nablus