Israeli authorities have yet made another move to expand illegal settlements by confiscating land in the north, centre and south of the West Bank.
As reported by the Palestinian News Agency WAFA, Israeli authorities gave a military order on 8 Sunday, which declared the confiscation of 100 dunams of Palestinian owned land in the villages Qaryut and Jaloud, two villages in the south of Nablus.
According to Ghassan Daghlas a Palestinian official, who is responsible for the monitoring for expanding settlement activities, authorities had seized that land to expand the nearby settlement of Shilo.
Additionally, Israeli authorities have issued military orders to seize land in the governorate of Bethlehem. Hassan Bureijia, head of the Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Bethlehem, stated that one military order has been issued to confiscate land in the neighbourhood for Al-Makhrour in the city of Beit Jala and the other is related to the Al-Rashaydeh neighbourhood in the east of Bethlehem.
The military order affects land which is owned by Palestinian residents and will be supposedly used to expand the adjacent settlement, Maali Amos.
Prior, to these new confiscations of Palestinian land, Israeli authorities have announced they will build 6,000 new homes for Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
There are currently over 132 settlements in the West Bank, which were officially established by the Israeli government, and 113 settlement outposts, which are considered illegal under Israeli law. These settlements and outposts in the West Bank are inhabited by over 400,000 settlers.
This recent confiscation goes hand-in-hand with the increasing virulent rhetoric of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his fellow party colleagues. Last Week Wednesday, Netanyahu made a historic move by being the first Israeli Minister to give a public speech in the Israeli settlement in the old city of Hebron.
Following this controversial move from Netanyahu, Speaker of the Knesset and Likud member Yuli Adelstein vowed to extend Israel’s sovereignty over the city of Hebron. He stated that “Hebron’s time has come, and it is time to impose Israeli sovereignty over the city. It is time to increase the number of Jews in Hebron by thousands.” Additionally adding; “It is time for Hebron to be an Israeli city and even the mother of all Israeli cities”.