The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements said that the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu rewards settler terrorism by launching a new wave of construction in the settlements.

In its weekly report, the National Bureau confirmed that the State of Israel does not value the international reactions condemning its settlement activities and the terrorist practices of settlers against Palestinian citizens, their homes, properties, and crops in the Palestinian countryside, and it turns its back on the international community because it considers that what is issued by its countries is nothing more than lip service. While it evaluates all the weight and gives all attention to the settlers and their settlement project in the West Bank, and rewards them for their terrorist practices with more construction in the settlements that it has established throughout the length and breadth of the West Bank, contrary to international law and international legitimacy decisions.

In this context, the approval of the "Supreme Council for Planning and Building" of the Civil Administration in the occupation army comes last week on the construction of 5,623 new settlement units in the West Bank, and this includes depositing plans for the construction of 4,291 new settlement units in an advanced stage of planning and construction stages with the occupation authorities prior to issuing tenders. To implement construction projects.

The aforementioned council decision also includes submitting 1,332 building plans for approval after holding a session to hear objections before final approval and preparation of tenders, in addition to approving 1,000 new settlement units, more than what the government had approved earlier in the “Eli” settlement on the lands of The villages of Al-Sawiya, Al-Laban Al-Sharqiya, and Qaryut, south of Nablus, as well as the retroactive approval of 3 settlement outposts located on the outskirts of Eli, which are Hayovel, Nof Harim, and Balgi Maim.

According to the data available to the National Bureau, the distribution of construction according to the Israeli plan indicates 359 settlement units in "Elkana", 381 in "Rivava", 29 in "Givat Ze'ev", 42 in "Carmiel" and 7 in "Harmesh", in addition to 4915. A settlement unit in an advanced stage of planning and construction ahead of issuing tenders for the implementation of construction projects, including: 1,563 in “Eli”, including 347 in the “Balge Maim” outpost and 407 housing units in the “Hayovil” and “Nof Harim” outposts, 98 in "Ariel" and 714 in "Givat Ze'ev"; 340 in Ma'ale Adumim, 312 in Beitar Illit, 310 in Adora, 264 in Etz Ephraim, 152 in Ma'ale Amos, and 78 in Asfar.

The decision of the occupation authorities came as a circumvention of the international community and a promise that Netanyahu had made to himself in the name of his government to the US administration on the twenty-second of last March that his government would not establish new settlements in the northern West Bank, after the American protest against the Knesset’s approval of a bill to cancel the decision Separation from four settlements in the north of the West Bank that were dismantled in 2005, as part of an approach to legitimize many random outposts established by hilltop youth organizations and other Jewish terrorist organizations, in contravention of even the approval of Israeli governments.

Netanyahu's statements came after the United States summoned the Israeli ambassador in Washington to a consultation session on Israeli law, in a move that the Hebrew media described as "unusual and rare".

It is known that the number of settlers, according to official Israeli statistics, reached about 450,000 settlers in the West Bank, excluding Jerusalem, at the end of the year 2021, distributed as follows: about 36% of them are Haredim, and 35% are religious Zionists, while secularists make up about 29% of this total. .

And these settlers reside, according to the follow-up of the National Office for the Defense of the Land, in 158 settlements that have grown alongside and on the margins of more than 200 settlement outposts, and they are all settlements and outposts, under the influence of local or regional councils. One million dunams, or what constitutes 15% of the area classified as Area C, or about 2.9% of the area of ​​the West Bank, while its vital area covers Area C as a whole.

The approval of the Supreme Council for Planning and Building in the civil administration run by the leader of religious Zionism appears to be a reward for the Jewish terror organizations operating in the settlements. These organizations stem mainly from the ideological settlements controlled by religious Zionism, which constitute 35 percent of the total settlements established by the occupation throughout the West Bank. And its breadth and depth as well, and occupies the tops of mountains and hills.

In addition to all this, 37 commercial and industrial establishments out of 200 in the Wadi al-Jouz neighborhood, northeast of the Old City in occupied Jerusalem, are facing the threat of demolition in favor of a huge settlement project, which the occupation authorities call the “Silicon Valley” project, which was announced in early 2020, and it will be implemented on the ruins. The industrial area in the aforementioned neighborhood.

Through the project, the occupation aims to transform the Palestinian neighborhoods close to the walls of the Old City and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque into a technological, industrial and commercial center, and an area of ​​attraction and settlement investment at the expense of the lands and interests of the Jerusalemites.

The danger of the project, if implemented, stems from the fact that it is located in the area between Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the Old City, where settlement outposts are spread, and out of fears that it will be used as a basis to expand the circle of those outposts within the Palestinian neighborhoods, especially if the outpost of "Siddik Shimon" extends in the neighborhood towards the east and reaches to Wadi al-Jawz.

It is noteworthy that the Israeli District Committee rejected last week the objections submitted by the owners and tenants in the industrial zone in Wadi Al-Jouz to the "Silicon Valley" project. And that the project was approved in isolation from the social, economic and cultural needs of the residents of East Jerusalem, and that it is not feasible or financially beneficial to the local residents and real estate owners, and that its effects will be disastrous for their interests, after about 40 business owners, workshops and shops in the area have already received eviction orders upon approval of the project.

In its rejection of these objections, the District Commission claimed that the project was built on the foundations that ensure the development of the area and its transformation from an unregulated area with its uses such as garages and light industries to a hotel commercial use, advanced technology and large investments.

The cost of the project is 2.1 billion shekels ($600 million). It allocates 250,000 square meters of real estate to high-tech companies, in addition to another 100,000 square meters distributed between shops and hotels, in complete disregard for the needs of the indigenous population.

Rising terror
On the other hand, and according to the sequence of events, settler fires circulate freely in the villages and towns of the Palestinian countryside. From Hawara, Jalud, and Al-Mughayer a few weeks ago, to Turmusaya and Umm Safa in the last week, Jewish terrorist organizations carry matches to light more fires, which are fires set by organized groups. Dozens and hundreds are embarrassed to complete the role that the occupation army cannot, due to political considerations, play.

It is noted here that these organized groups no longer pay much attention to criticism of their criminal behavior and practices, after they moved from working in secret cells to working in organized groups in broad daylight as in the darkness of the night, and began publishing their posters on the Israeli military checkpoints scattered in the West Bank, calling for To take revenge on the Palestinians, without the soldiers of those checkpoints moving a finger.

Not only that, but they started setting up tents in open areas, as happened recently between Deir Sharaf, Sebastia, and Cyrenaica on the road linking the cities of Nablus and Tulkarem, and attacking farmers and shepherds as if they were a parallel authority or auxiliary to the soldiers at the checkpoints without being intercepted by the occupation army.

The widely circulated newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth" in Israel commented on these publications, that there is a direct relationship between ministers in Netanyahu's government with settlers who carry out mass attacks on Palestinian villages and towns in the West Bank.

Contrary to the repeated Israeli allegations that the perpetrators of the attacks are minor settlers, and therefore are not arrested and prosecuted, the newspaper report made it clear that the perpetrators are adults and armed with a firearm, and that the scope of the mass attacks they carry out has been increasing in recent weeks.

The Minister in the Ministry of the Army and the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, had said that the administrative arrests against settlers are a very cruel and undemocratic measure, and its use against settlers and not against other groups is severe discrimination, and the collective punishment that is carried out in the "Ateret" settlement is cruel, knowing that the army Close the settlement gate no more.

Smotrich, as he did at the moment of the barbaric attack on the town of Hawara, incited against the Palestinians in the town of Umm Safa, describing it as the town from which the Arab rioters came out in recent days. Ben Gvir also launched an attack on the leaders of the security services, accusing them of suppressing the settlers during their terrorist attacks. Over the past week, settlers carried out more than 85 terrorist attacks in Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, according to an Israeli security official.

The Ynet website revealed last week that these settlers from the "Hills Youth" terrorist organization are in direct and continuous contact with ministers and Knesset members, especially from the Religious Zionist Party headed by Smotrich, and the "Otzma Yehudit" party headed by Ben Gvir.

It has become clear that the transfer of powers in the Ministry of Defense to the additional Minister Smotrich has begun to bear fruit for them, as law enforcement activities against illegal Jewish construction have been reduced to a minimum, and the occupation government has approved shortening the procedures for approving construction in the West Bank, and has concentrated it in the hands of Smotrich, and the outposts. The recently built buildings will not be evacuated despite their illegality, even according to the laws of the occupation authorities. They were not affected by the statements of Prime Minister Netanyahu declaring that the illegal occupation of lands is "unacceptable and must be stopped immediately." outward only.

As for Smotrich, Ben Gvir, and Struck, they are not preoccupied with idle talk, but focus on the field. Ben Gvir travels to the field in "Avitar" to encourage the "hilltop youth" to move forward, and Smotrich rebukes his critics and refuses to compare Arab "terrorism" with civilian counteractions to settlers. While Struck escalates the situation by talking about an Israeli "Wagner" invading the occupation army.

In such an atmosphere, and under the pressure of Minister Smotrich and representatives of "religious Zionism" in the ruling coalition, Netanyahu instructed to examine the so-called allegations of using excessive force against settlers who carried out terrorist attacks targeting Palestinians in the West Bank during the last week, and this was an additional indication of the escalation of pressure from the Zionist movement. Religious, who enjoys influence and wide powers in the ruling coalition to push the Israeli security services to unleash the unruly settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The rise of the strength of the religious Zionist parties and the Jewish power has reached a point that prompted the Israeli Minister of Settlement and National Missions, Orit Struck, to liken the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, the Inspector General of the Police, and the head of the Shin Bet to the Russian military "Wagner" group that rebelled against the Russian government, against the background of the statement of the leaders of the security services. Joint against settler attacks.

The voices of the religious Zionist movement in Netanyahu's government are louder to harm the occupation security services by claiming to "suppress" the settlers during their attack on the town of Umm Safa in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate, during which they burned the homes and vehicles of Palestinian citizens and fired live bullets at their homes and facilities.

Further, settlers expelled, a few days ago, the commander of the Ramallah region in the Israeli army, Eliaf El-Baz, when he arrived at the house of settler Harel Masoud, who was killed in a shooting attack at the "Eli" settlement, and prevented him from entering the house inside the "Yad Binyamin" outpost, and pursued him to Outside the settlement, they insulted him and described him as a traitor, murderer, and coward, holding him responsible for the operation and the security failure, and that the four settlers who were killed in the operation were killed because of his failure, in an indication of brutal incitement by political figures who encouraged extremist elements in the settlements and outposts to act against the law, according to Israeli government sources. , in a clear reference to the extremist ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir.