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Israel levels land in Palestinian village to expand stone-cutting factory

June 21, 2022 at 7:02 pm

Israeli diggers demolish the Palestinian al-Rajbi family’s home claiming that it was unlicensed in Silvan Village of East Jerusalem on May 10, 2022. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

Israeli settlers, today, levelled and dug swathes of land ​​in the Palestinian village of Kisan, east of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, reported Wafa news agency.

Kisan, a village cut off from other neighbouring Palestinian villages, is inhabited by 800 people and is surrounded by the two illegal Israeli settlements of Maale Amos and Avi Menahem.

Its area is about 133,278 dunams (133 square kilometres). Israeli settlers expropriated 2,201 dunams (2.2 square kilometres).

Ahmad Ghazal, a local activist, told Wafa that a settler levelled a two-dunam plot of land to make room for the expansion of his stone-cutting factory, located 100 metres away from the houses of the village.

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He added that this is not the first time village land and residents have come under attack from Israeli settlers and soldiers.

The small Palestinian village of Kisan has faced intensified Israeli land theft and settler attacks in recent months.

The village does not have transportation, electricity or water networks. It does not have a clinic, either.

Like hundreds of other Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, Kisan is located in ‘Area C’ under the Oslo Accords, putting it under full Israeli military and administrative control.