The National Office for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements said that the Israeli occupation authorities have submitted again an old project which includes building a new settlement that includes thousands of residential and commercial units on the lands of Jerusalem Airport, in the Qalandia area north of the occupied city.
The office explained in a press report today, Saturday, that this comes in the context of the Israeli occupation government’s policy to put an end to the so-called two-state solution, and to deal another severe damage to the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
It added that the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem is currently busy promoting the construction of 10,000 settlement units in that area, specifically on the lands of the airport, which the Israeli occupation authorities have seized since 1967, and planned to establish the settlement on what they classifies as state land. It pointed out that this would enable the Israeli occupation authorities to build the settlement without the need to seize Palestinian land or receive objections over land ownership.
The office pointed out that this settlement will be the second in East Jerusalem, since Israel ratified the construction of the settlement of Har Homa, which was established on Mount Abu Ghneim in 1997.
The office explained that the procedural steps that precede the start of the construction will start in December 2021, and may take 3 year, especially since the plan has dangerous dimensions, and the political level in Tel Aviv is currently working to expedite its procedures.
The office warned that the new settlement will be built on 900 dunams, out of 1,200 dunams, of the total area of the airport lands that were closed by the Israeli occupation authorities in 2000, then they stopped using it after it was allocated for internal flights.
In the context of settlement projects, the office revealed details of the largest settlement, economic and entertainment complex in the Red Plain area, east of occupied Jerusalem, after thousands of dunums of Palestinian lands were confiscated.
The office stated that the Israeli occupation authorities levelled large areas of land in the Bethlehem Governorate and the town of Al-Khader in the areas of Bakush, Al-Sha’af, the Roman Patriarchate, and the west of the town, estimated at hundreds of dunams for the benefit of the settlements.
It pointed out that, last week, the Israeli occupation bulldozers began levelling large areas of the lands of Sebastia town northwest of Nablus in favor of settlement expansion.
The Israeli occupation government was not satisfied with settlement projects in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, but it expanded its aggressive ambitions. The Israeli Minister of Interior, Ayelet Shaked, presented a new proposal to the Israeli government to establish new settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The report stated that the past week witnessed many attacks by settlers against Palestinian farmers, their lands and their olive trees, under the protection of the occupation army. These attacks were concentrated in the northern West Bank.
It indicated that the attacks varied between physical assault, burning, theft, cutting down trees, and preventing farmers from entering their lands.
In similar estimates issued by Israeli and Palestinian institutions, including the National Bureau for the Defense of the Land, as well as international organizations, the data indicate that settlers carried out 363 terrorist attacks against Palestinians in 2019. This number rose to 507 in 2020, and to 416 attack in the first half of this year.