Ramallah, Sept 5 (Petra) – A weekly report on Israel's settlement activity in the occupied West Bank revealed an escalation by the occupation authorities and settlers to impose new facts on the ground in Area C, and increasingly extending into Areas A and B, The measures threaten Palestinian lands and undermine the geographical contiguity between Palestinian cities and villages across the West Bank, according to the report published on Saturday by the Palestine Liberation Organisation's National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlements.
The report, covering the period from August 29 to September 4, revealed that the Israeli measures are no longer restricted to Area C, but have extended to Areas A and B through newly-established settlement outposts, land seizures, road construction, and new curbs on Palestinians' access to their lands, along with expanding the powers of so-called "Israeli Civil Administration" in these areas.
"Peace Now", an Israeli leftist movement that advocates for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and monitors West Bank settlement activity, has documented 26 settlement outposts and pastoral farms being established in Area B, including seven in late 2024 and 19 in recent months, according to the report.
The outposts were set up along with new roads, seizure of water resources, and restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, allowing a small number of settlers to control vast areas of land, it said.
Kerem Navot, an Israeli nonprofit research and advocacy NGO that monitors Israeli settlement activity and land policy in the West Bank, in cooperation with Peace Now, prepared maps of more than 100,000 dunams in Areas A and B that were forcibly seized by settlers, including about 55,000 dunams in Area B, 28,200 in the "agreed-upon nature reserve" in the same area, and about 15,600 in Area A, according to the report.
It mentioned military orders and measures by the occupation authorities in Area A, including a decision issued in February by so-called Israeli Security Cabinet to authorize the "Civil Administration" to enforce and monitor environmental, water, and archaeological matters in Areas A and B.
In July, Israeli Central Command Chief Avi Bluth signed 15 orders to seize about 200 dunams within Area A for constructing a road between the settlements of Emek Dotan, near the town of Arraba, and Noa, north of Qabatiya.
"It is the first instance since the signing of the Oslo Accords where military confiscation orders in Area A have been used for settlement purposes, rather than temporary security," said the report.
The measures followed the Israeli Security Cabinet's decision to establish 104 new settlements, including 19 in the northern West Bank, as part of moves to enhance the settlement presence and impose new facts on the ground.
//Petra//SS
