Ramallah: For work on more than 1,000 new housing units in settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities have issued a call for bids. Despite numerous requests from the Arab and international communities to stop such activity in Palestinian territories, their policy of settlement expansion continues.
The new apartments, in addition to the 89 units in the Gilo settlement west of occupied Jerusalem, will be situated in the settlements of Beitar Illit, Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Ma'ale Ephraim, and Karnei Shomron, according to the request for tenders.
The declaration was made as construction on 31 more settlement homes in Hebron, in the southern West Bank, got underway. Construction started after an Israeli court overruled the Israeli Peace Now Movement, the Hebron Municipality, and the neighbourhood group Youth Against Settlements in their legal challenges.
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Building on a sizable residential complex that includes a commercial complex, a kindergarten, a medical clinic, and public areas in addition to the settlement units will start after land-leveling and Antiquities Authority work in the area are finished. It will result in a 30% increase in the number of settlers in Hebron.
Concerns have been raised about its potential effects, including increased settler violence against Palestinians and changes to the area's Palestinian identity, as it is the first settlement construction in the area in 23 years. The 1997 Hebron Protocol, which requires Israel to maintain the area's Palestinian identity and fully permit Palestinians and their vehicles access, is allegedly violated by the work, according to the Palestinians.
Residents of Hebron worry that the increased military presence, checkpoints, and theft of Palestinian property will come as a result of the settlement expansion.
Separately, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh requested on Monday that UNESCO step in to stop Israeli authorities from building a settlement next to the village of Sebastia, close to Nablus, claiming that it would seriously harm the historic site.
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Speaking at the Palestinian Cabinet's weekly meeting in Ramallah, he described recent incursions, settlement growth, and an attempt to take over Hebron's municipal building as violations and a continuation of the Nakba, or "Catastrophe," which started with the annexation of Palestinian land in 1948 and continues to this day.
Additionally on Monday, settlers attacked Palestinian farmers as they worked their land in the southern Nablus towns of Qaryut and Jalud. According to Ghassan Daghlas, the official in charge of settlement issues in the northern West Bank, the settlers assaulted the farmers and damaged a tractor's tyres.
He claimed that since the new, right-wing Israeli coalition government came into power in late December, attacks by settlers against Palestinians and their land and property had significantly increased.
Palestinians oppose Israeli settlement activity and see it as a threat to the prospects of creating a contiguous and prosperous state alongside Israel based on the borders of 1967.
Right-wing extremists in the Israeli cabinet have been calling more frequently, according to Palestinian political analyst Riyad Qadriya, to increase settlement activity in order to keep their campaign promises and appease their supporters.
He anticipates that the Palestinian response to Israel's increasing use of force to seize Palestinian land and its settlement growth will continue to escalate.
On Palestinian territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, more than 140 illegal Israeli outposts are home to about 650,000 settlers. International law considers all settlements to be unlawful.
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According to Shawan Jabarin, director of the Al-Haq Foundation for Human Rights in Ramallah, a global campaign calling for a boycott of companies around the world that run or invest in Israeli settlements is being led by Palestinian and international human rights organisations. He thinks that interactions with settlements ought to be considered war crimes.
Israeli settlers and their leaders who reside in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have also requested free visas from the EU, according to Palestinian human rights activists.