Palestinians given just 0.25% of Israeli-allocated state land in occupied West Bank

Palestinians have been given just 0.25 percent of Israeli-allocated state land in the occupied West Bank, new figures have revealed.

As reported by Haaretz, data released by the Defense Ministry-run Civil Administration shows that since 1967, occupation authorities have allocated only 1,624, dunams (401 acres) of so-called state land in the West Bank for Palestinians.

“A conservative estimate puts this at around 0.25 percent of the allocations in the West Bank”, Haaretz states, adding that “all other allocations have been for [Israeli] settlements”.

The figures were made public after a request by Peace Now and the Movement for Freedom of Information after a two-year delay.

Read: The Palestinian cause is about land not economics

“For more than 50 years the state has allocated land in the West Bank almost solely for the needs of settlements, and sweepingly fails to designate it for the use of the protected Palestinians,” said Shabtay Bendet of Peace Now’s settlement-monitoring team.

Under international law, the Palestinians under Israeli military occupation are a protected population.

#LandGrab

Since 1967, Israeli authorities declared huge swathes of the occupied Palestinian territory as ‘state land’, in order to facilitate colonisation.

“Land is one of the most important public resources, and designating it for the use of one group only at the expense of another is one of the clearest characteristics of apartheid”, Bendet continued.

According to the full data obtained by Peace Now, 99.76 percent of state land in the occupied West Bank has been “allocated for the needs of Israeli settlements”.

Settlement – Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]