Head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Mu'ayyad Shaaban, said that the Israeli occupation state has begun building a new colony on the lands of the Bethlehem Governorate, in the area between the towns of Husan and Al-Khader, specifically on the lands of the village of Battir. This colony is called "Nahal Helitz."

He added in a statement issued by the Authority on Tuesday that the establishment of this colony was approved in response to the wave of recognition of the State of Palestine by countries around the world in June of last year, and that the occupying state, after the decision to establish this colony, took a series of steps, the first of which was to allocate a total of 120 dunams for the benefit of the new colony, then followed it with the decision of the Blue Line team, which subjected another 600 dunams for its establishment, to begin the actual construction process in it these days.

Shaaban warned that the establishment of this colony aims to further separate the governorates of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, in an attempt to gradually implement the Greater Jerusalem plan, which threatens the entire geographical continuity between the northern and southern West Bank.

He pointed out that the occupation has taken extremely dangerous steps in recent days that would strengthen colonial settlement and fragment Palestinian geography.

In a related context, Shaaban stated that the occupation authorities issued 6 military orders yesterday allocating lands for pastoral colonization, adding that the occupying state is keen to strengthen agricultural and pastoral colonization not only by encouraging the establishment and creation of this type of outposts, but also by protecting them by allocating areas of up to more than 16 thousand dunams by the official institution in the occupying state.

He pointed out that these orders are deliberately preventing Palestinian shepherds from accessing these lands and granting settlers full authority to use them, adding that the first military order issued yesterday targeted the lands of the Salfit and Ramallah governorates, specifically the villages of Deir Ballut and Al-Lubban Al-Gharbi, allocating a total of 2,600 dunums for settlers’ grazing, which are areas that were previously declared as “state lands,” while the second, third and fourth orders targeted the Ramallah governorate, specifically the village of Kafr Malik, allocating an area of 1,505 dunums, and the lands of Deir Jarir with two orders targeting a total of 4,900 dunums for the same purpose. The fifth order targeted the lands of Ghor Al-Far’a in the Jericho governorate, targeting a total of 426 dunums, while the sixth order targeted a total of 8,700 dunums of lands in the city of Tubas.

Shaaban explained that this step, and the risks it entails, comes within the framework of what has been repeatedly announced about the occupation government’s intention to work on settling the status of “legalizing” 70 agricultural and pastoral colonial outposts, within the coalition agreements between the parties that make up the occupation government, and that the step of allocating lands for grazing will lead to the consolidation of these outposts by granting them vast areas, to become a center and a starting point for carrying out more terrorist attacks against citizens and their property, adding that the number of pastoral outposts reached a total of 137 agricultural and pastoral outposts by the end of 2024, preventing citizens from reaching a total of 489 thousand dunams.

He added that the occupying state is continuing to impose facts on the Palestinian geography that will tear apart the Palestinian land and impose a system of isolated enclaves in order to eliminate the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state in the future. Shaaban stressed that what the occupying state is doing on the ground in terms of serious violations of the most basic human rights rules does not only attack the capabilities of the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights, but also persists in its attack on the decisions of the international community, the resolutions of the United Nations and the declared legal positions in this regard.

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