Israel launches a massive settlement wave in the West Bank in par with its brutal war on Gaza

The national Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that as the Israeli PM Netanyahu promises to continue his brutal war on Gaza, in pursuit of achieving ‘the dream of utter victory’, his government tears the West Bank into isolated arts through thee very many military checkpoints and iron gates at the ins and outs of its cities, towns and villages, and then turning them into open-air prisons, at the same time launching a massive settlement wave with´-or-without pretexts.
In last June, four settlers were killed and four others were injured in a shooting attack at the ‘Eli settlement’s gate’, located between Nablus and Ramallah. At once, the Israeli government began consultations to review the situation, and then used the incident as an excuse to launch a new wave of construction in the settlements.
The Israeli Occupation PM Netanyahu, and his associated friends, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, took the decision to build a thousand new settlement units in the ‘Eli settlement’, and his office explained that the decision came as a response to an armed Palestinian attack at the entrance of the settlement that claimed the lives of settlers, who were there, adding that he and the Minister of Finance and the Minister in the Ministry of the Army, Bezalel Smotrich agreed on that, and the Minister of the Army, Yoav Galant didn’t oppose it.

Netanyahu is lying, as the decision was not a response to the incident, as much as the killing of the settlers was an excuse that Netanyahu found an appropriate opportunity for his political maneuvers. On one hand, Netanyahu s decision appeased Smotrich and Ben Gvir and his fascist settlement alliance, and on the other hand, it is an opportunity that serves as a pretext to get the Eli settlement expansion plan out of his government, which he himself has approved in 2014, under the title “Administrative Measures,” the confiscation of private lands for Palestinian citizens from the villages of Al-Sawiya, Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya, and Qaryut in the Nablus Governorate as part of a plan to build 640 settlement units in thet settlement. But his steps faltered in the Israeli Supreme Court at the time after the Israeli B’Tselem and Bimkom Foundation submitted citizens’ petitions against the plan that seized more than a thousand dunams, 24% of which were not registered as state land, but privately owned ones.
The scene was repeated on 22nd of this month, after an operation targeting settlers at the ‘Al-Za’im checkpoint’ near the ‘Maale Adumim settlement’, which Netanyahu also took it as an excuse to advance a plan to build 3,344 settlement units, including 2,350 units in the aforementioned settlement. On the same day, he held a session for his inner cabinet in which Army Minister, Yoav Galant, Settlement Minister in the Army Ministry Bezalel Smotrich, and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer participated, in which they decided to respond to the request of the leaders of these councils to hold a session of the Supreme Council for Planning in order to approve the construction of these settlement units. Here also, Netanyahu is lying, this new construction in the “Ma’leh Adumim” settlement and its surroundings, the. settlement construction projects in the region exceed 4 times the number of housing units, which were recently announced in the settlement plans, which were up for discussion in the Settlement Planning Council at the Civil Administration during the era of the Netanyahu governments in mid-2023, specifically in the area currently annexed to the municipality of the “Maale Adumim” settlement, which extends to the north and west of it.
Within the context, those who promote stories claiming that PM of the occupation government Netanyahu has become, especially, during the war launched by his government on the Gaza Strip as a hostage in the hands of both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of the Army, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and that they blackmail him in every way and impose on him, among other things, the government’s settlement policy, that is part of the picture, but not the most important part of it. Both heads of “Religious Zionism” and the “Jewish Force” parties need for Netanyahu is greater than the latter’s need for them. Each of them sees in the existing government and its continuation his last chance, especially since opinion polls in Israel indicate that Smotrich’s party will most likely not exceed the electoral threshold in any upcoming legislative elections.
As for Ben Gvir, he finds his first and last chance as a minister specializing in starting fires. For Netanyahu, the current government represents a salvation from the miserable political future that awaits him, if the war on Gaza ends without him achieving his dream of “absolute victory.” He realizes before anyone else that it is just an illusion that is difficult to sell his plan for the “next day, because it is a plan that, in essence, is based on deepening the occupation and settlement at the same time.

The new settlement construction in ‘Maale Adumim’ was followed up without resorting to pretexts, pushed the Israeli government to build a new settlement east of Bethlehem, in a large project that includes more than 13,000 new settlement units to be built in two phases, under the decision issued by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Feb. 2023, with the legalization of 9 settlement outposts and the construction of thousands of settlement units.
The commander of the central region in the occupation army, Yehuda Fuchs, signed an order specifying the scope of jurisdiction for the new settlement north of the town of Al-Ubaidiyah, in the Bethlehem Governorate, according to what the Israeli ‘Peace Now Movement’ reported last Wednesday, indicating that the first phase in the new settlement will include 3,600 settlement units on a land area of 417 dunums, while the second phase, the settlement is scheduled to expand to an additional 2,000 dunums and another 10,000 housing units for Haredi Jewish settlers after the Israeli Ministry of Housing contracted with planners and architects to prepare plans for the new settlement, which deepens the occupation and settlement and disrupt the chances of reaching the so-called two-state solution.
The settler leaders praised the official approval of the municipal boundaries of the new settlement in the ‘Gush Etzion’ area, where the ‘Mishmar Yehuda settlement’ located, was the former illegal ‘Mitzpe Yehuda outpost’, which is also known as the ‘Kedar Zon’ farm on an area of 417 dunams to the south of the Maale Adumim settlement in the Jerusalem desert, but it will be attached to the Gush Etzion Regional Council, located to the south of the land on which the new settlement will be built that was registered in the name of an Israeli company based in ‘Kiryat Arba settlement.’
The Settlement Minister in the Army Ministry, Bezalel Smotrich welcomed the approval of Mishmar Yehuda municipal boundaries, saying it came after ‘tireless work’ over a year by the settlements administration within the Army Ministry, which he controls. He said I was behind the cabinet decision in Feb. 2023 to legalize 9 outposts, as stipulated in the coalition agreement between his Religious Zionism party and the ruling Likud party.

For his part, Ben Gvir, the arsonist in the West Bank, also welcomed the decision and pledged to protect Jewish terrorism, which emanates from settlements, outposts and so-called pastoral farms, without a minimum of concern for the consequences of his positions and policies. Here, the Israeli media reported on the authority of American officials that Washington is considering including National Security Minister, Ben Gvir in a new list of sanctions against settlers, who practice violence against Palestinians´-or-incite it, as Itamar Ben Gvir does, especially after he facilitated the procedures for obtaining permits to carry weapons for large numbers. of settlers after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and granted him 14,000 weapon licenses, in addition to his interference in the work of the police and preventing them from providing assessments related to Jewish terrorism.
It is known that the Minister of National Security, Ben Gvir used to ‘reprimand’ the Shin Bet representative when he addressed the Jewish terrorism, during weekly deliberations, to the point that prompted the police to stop providing assessments about Jewish terrorism and dealing with far-right activists and plans to evacuate random settlement outposts, since Ben Gvir assumed his ministerial position’.
Noting that Ben Gvir holds weekly deliberations every Thursday in which representatives from all security services participate, including the Inspector General of the Police and its leadership, the Prison and Fire Services, a permanent representative from the Shin Bet and another from the army, he quoted as saying his strict and rude treatment of the Shin Bet representative, including reprimanding those present and hitting the table because the Shin Bet had a warning conversation with an extreme right-wing activist from the ‘Yitzhar settlement’, which is considered a stronghold for the rightists.

On the other hand, on last Feb. 27, the Israeli local authorities elections for the year 2024 took place after being postponed for several months due to the war on the Gaza Strip, attention was -dir-ected to the Municipality of Occupied Jerusalem, and its policy towards the city and the participation of Palestinian citizens in the elections in light of the policy of settlement and Judaization practiced by the Occupation Authorities against this occupied city.
The ‘Ynet website’ affiliated with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, interviewed the candidates for the position of mayor, including of course the current president, Moshe Leon, who spoke about his achievements in the recent period, and shed more light on more construction plans in existing settlements by doubling the rate of granting building permits by three times for the Jewish population, neglected to mention the restrictions on Palestinian construction in the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, and the demolition operations that were carried out in the city, which exceeded 290 demolitions in 2023, including 73 facilities whose owners were forced to demolish them with their own hands to avoid exorbitant fees imposed by the municipality if it did so.
Therefore, the tripling of the rate of granting building permits that Leon talks about relates to the construction of housing units for settlement neighborhoods, and negligible fragments of licenses for the benefit of Jerusalemites whose files have been suspended and postponed in the various municipal departments, especially in the current war on Gaza.
An extreme right-wing movement headed by Deputy Mayor Aryeh King and supported by National Security Minister, Ben Gvir, who announced that the Arabs of Jerusalem, like the Arabs of Gaza, are made up of extremist Islamists, a Christian minority, and a silent majority that quietly supports terrorism, adding that these ‘cursed terrorists’ and their families must be expelled from Israel. Noting that preliminary data indicates that the participation rate of residents of East Jerusalem in the occupation municipal elections was less than 1% of those with the right to vote among the residents of occupied East Jerusalem, in which Palestinians constitute more than 39% of the population in the eastern and western parts of the city.

List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
• Erecting a high tower, placed monitoring cameras on it, renovated the military barracks spread across the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and established new cement bases, with the aim of movement inside the mosque before the holy month of Ramadan, surveillance cameras were also installed in the town of Silwan, in several streets in the Ein-Loza Neighborhood, to monitor citizens’ movements.
• Demolishing a house belonging to Ramzi Abu Hammad, in the village of Al-Walaja, after they surrounded the house from all sides, and forced the family to leave their home and evacuate its contents by force, and then demolished it.
• Demolishing a cement base belonging to Mohammad Ali Za’atara, in the Madaris Neighborhood in Jabal Al-Mukaber in Jerusalem.
Hebron:
• Notifying t demolish two houses and a water well, and the destruction of an electricity network, in the “Khallet Al-Farra” community, south of Hebron, after they stormed the community adjacent to the ‘Otnael settlement’. They also prevented farmers and shepherds from reaching fields and pastures south of Hebron, and notified the destruction of the community’s electricity network, about a km long, supplies approximately 35 homes in which between 150-200 citizens live.
• Firing live bullets at citizens and chased them while they were trying to reach the Shaab al-Butm area in Masafer Yatta and towards children in the Arqoub area. They also arrested two citizens while they were on their lands there
• Stealing equipment and property from the home of the citizen Ahmed Mahmoud Hamamda in the ‘Fursa-Shib Gathering’ in the village of Khallet-Dabaa.
• Firing poison bombs towards the sheep farms in the village of ‘"Munizel’, and settlers assaulted and beat four children while they were collecting Akoob vegetable in ‘Wadi Al-Jawaya’, causing them to suffer bruises, and settlers chased the shepherds in ‘Ein Al-Bayda’, prevented them from grazing their livestock.
Bethlehem:
• Erecting three mobile homes on the lands of ‘Khallet an-Nahla near the village of Wadi Rahal, to expand the borders of the ‘Givat Eitam settlement outpost’.
• Attacking shepherds in the town of Tekoa in the Fatura area, east of the town, and forced them to leave the place.
• Destroying a barbed wire surrounding lands in the Khalayel al-Lawz area, southeast of Bethlehem, surrounding 18 dunums of agricultural land belonging to a citizen from the Suwais family, at gunpoint.
• Demolishing stone chains and destroyed about 20 vine trees on land belonging to the Ayyash family in the Khallet al-Nahlah area, south of Bethlehem. The occupation forces also demolished two houses in the village of Al-Walaja, northwest of Bethlehem, in the ‘Ein Jwiza area’, northeast of the village, the first belonging to Ramzi Abu Hamad, with an area of 100m2, and part of another house with an area of 120m2, belonging to the citizen Suad Radwan.
Ramallah:
• Attacking shepherds in the Al-Fawwar area and stole more than two hundred and fifty heads of livestock, belonging to citizens Moh’d Suleiman Jahalin and Suleiman Musa Suleiman Jahalin, and took them to a settlement outposts east of the Mikhmas town.
Nablus:
• Burning a vehicle in the village of Burin, and fired at a vehicles near Khirbet Yanun in the lands of Aqraba, south of Nablus, causing it to overturn.
• Attacking citizens’ vehicles near the town of Al-Nasariya with stones, causing damage and smashing the windows of a number of them.
• Firing on a carpentry, a commercial store, and an electricity transformer in the Naqora village.
• Attacking the swimming pool area in the Hawara town, protected by occupation soldiers, and opened fire on citizens. They also attacked lands near homes east of Asira al-Qibliya, and attacked citizens’ vehicles between the villages of Asira al-Qibliya and Urif, with the participation of “Yitzhar” settlement security, who set up a checkpoint between the two villages, and fired live bullets, forcing the drivers to take bypass roads,
Salfeet:
• Uprooting 50 olive trees, approximately 35 years old, while constructing a settlement road in the ‘Wadi Al-Shaab area’, which belongs to the citizen Raed Sayed and sons of the late Ahmed Abdullah Sayed, at a time when the occupation forces installed an iron gate at the entrance leading to the lands of the Wadi al-Shaab area from the eastern side, in preparation for seizing them for the benefit of the settlement.
• Demolishing a building under construction, belonging to Najeh Daoud Abdullah, under the pretext of building in areas C, in Deir Ballut village.
• Preventing farmers of Wadi Qana from working on their lands in the ‘Al-Maqasim’” area’, under the pretext that it is a closed military zone, they detained farmer Abdel Fattah Muhammad Shehadeh, and prevented him from grazing his cows and livestock in the area.
• Seizing a bulldozer while working on citizens’ lands between the towns of Bidya and Seneria under the pretext of working in Area C
Jordan Valley:
• Fencing lands overlooking the Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp near the ‘Vered Jericho’ and ‘Mashhad Jericho’ settlements, as they seek to expand the two settlements for the benefit of what the occupation calls ‘security belt insulating the settlements’ in light of the fear that this will lead to the confiscation of thousands. Fencing these lands would deprive access to them and deprive the shepherds of grazing their sheep and refraining from grazing as part of a systematic plan to control the Jordan Valley lands and as an actual implementation of the idea of buffer zones proposed by the occupation Minister of Finance and the Minister in the Ministry of Security, Bezal Smotrich.
• Conducting excavation and expansion work on a -dir-t road leading to the pastoral settlement adjacent to the Ka’bna Arabs in Al-Marajat and in the northern Jordan Valley, where settlers released their cows into dozens of dunums of rain-fed crops for citizens in the Um Al-Qaba Plain in the Jordan Valley, under the protection of the occupation army.
• Stealing 30 sheep from the barn belonging to the citizen Suleiman Malihat in the Arab Mlihat community, northwest of Jericho.

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