Israeli occupation forces have seized 7.5 dunums (0.75 hectares) of land in the village of Husan, located west of occupied Bethlehem, reported Wafa news agency.
Jamal Sabateen, head of the Husan Village Council, informed Wafa that the Israeli occupation authorities issued maps declaring the seizure of the land. The affected area is situated near the village’s western entrance, adjacent to the illegal Beitar Illit settlement.
The confiscated property belongs to Palestinian residents Ayed Odeh Shusha and Ahmad Mahmoud Shahin.
Sabateen vowed to take all possible measures to oppose the confiscation of the land, Wafa reported.
The 2024 annual report by the Land Research Centre said Israel has demolished 970 Palestinian homes and establishments, issued demolition orders to 765 others and seized 53,055 dunums (53 square kilometres) in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, over the past year through various military orders.
It also revealed that the Israeli occupation displaced 38 Palestinian Bedouin communities, including 355 families consisting of 2,209 individuals, and established 25 illegal pastoral settlement outposts, threatening thousands more dunams with confiscation.
In 2024, far-right Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, issued a decision to expropriate Palestinian land south of Hebron, while seven settlement outposts were established on land classified in ‘Area B’ of the occupied West Bank, five of them in Bethlehem Wilderness lands, a nature reserve according to the Oslo Agreement and its annexes.
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