Shaked advances plan to increase number of Jewish settlers in Negev, Jaleel

Israeli Interior Minister, Ayelet Shaked, has advanced a plan to increase settler homes in occupied Negev and Jaleel, Israeli Hayom reported on Wednesday.

According to the Israeli daily, the Regional Planning and Construction Council is slated to discuss Shaked’s plan, which is planned to add 10,000 settler homes in these two areas, next week.

Safa reported Israeli Hayom saying the plan aimed at increasing the number of settlers in the two cities by 50 per cent – raising the number of settler families from 400 to 600.

The plan also aimed at raising the number of settler homes in Haifa and Ashkelon by 30 per cent, and in the centre of Israel by 15 per cent.

According to Shaked’s plan, homes in the Negev and Jaleel are to be doubled by dividing already existing homes without making any change on the property status of these homes. They will remain registered as one home.

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This plan, the newspaper said, would add tens of thousands of new settlement homes and would reinforce settler existence in these two cities, which suffer from a demographic crisis related to low density among the Jewish residents.

The Israeli newspaper said that this plan aims at flooding a new, young Jewish generation to these areas where a relatively aged Jewish population is living, and its regulations do not allow absorbing new families.

It is worth noting that the Israeli Occupation authorities have been putting restrictions on the Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jaleel while, at the same time, they confiscate wide swathes of the Palestinian-owned lands under several pretexts.