A new settlement plan for the occupation separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem, Jericho and the Dead Sea

Occupied Jerusalem - SANA

The Israeli occupation continues its open war against the Palestinian presence in the West Bank to implement colonial annexation plans, as it announced the seizure of hundreds of dunams of land south, east and west of Bethlehem to establish seven thousand new settlement units and settlement roads that threaten to separate the city from occupied Jerusalem, Jericho and the Dead Sea.

The new settlement plan tightens the noose around the city, which is besieged by 26 settlements on its four sides and cuts off the Apartheid Wall and 27 settlement outposts that connect them, which increases the suffering of the Palestinians, whose lives have turned into a large prison in which they are subjected to daily attacks by settlers who seize their lands and properties with the aim of displacing them.

Director of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission office in Bethlehem, Hassan Brijiya, explained in a statement to SANA's correspondent that the occupation authorities recently seized 1,100 dunums of Palestinian land south of Bethlehem with the aim of establishing 7,000 new settlement units and also seizing large areas of land in the Ta'amrah area east of the city. Wadi Shekit in the town of Nahalin, to the west of it, to establish settlement roads that link the settlements and isolate the Palestinian lands from each other.

He explained that the danger of the new settlement plan lies in the fact that it enables the occupation authorities to establish connected settlements in a strategic area and a straight line that extends from Khan al-Ahmar, east of occupied Jerusalem, to the area of ​​Tamara in Bethlehem and reaches south to Hebron, which threatens to isolate Bethlehem from occupied Jerusalem, Jericho and the Dead Sea.

A member of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission in Bethlehem Raed Danoun explained that the plan threatens to displace Palestinians from 30 towns east of Bethlehem, pointing out that the occupation forces have recently intensified their incursions into these towns, demolishing homes, and placing barbed wires on large areas of land and preventing Palestinians from reaching them.

In turn, Muhammad Zawahreh from the village of Beit Ta'amer, east of Bethlehem, said that the occupation had seized 65 percent of the village’s lands, and that the new scheme threatened to seize what remained of its lands and all the villages and towns east of Bethlehem, which would limit the Palestinian presence in small areas isolated from each other and exacerbate conditions The tragedy that the city is going through as a result of the settlements and the apartheid wall.

A member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Wasel Abu Youssef emphasized that the settlement plan represents a practical implementation of the annexation plans stipulated by the so-called "Deal of the Century" aimed at liquidating the Palestinian issue with the support of the American administration, pointing out that the Palestinian people will continue to hold fast on their land in the battle of dignity and existence until they are defeated. The brutal occupation and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

For his part, a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian People's Party, Talaat Safadi, called on the international community to break its silence and stop the settlement occupation plans that violate all international decisions related to the Palestinian cause, stressing that the Palestinian people will continue their struggle in the face of the occupation's plans aimed at displacing and uprooting them from their land.

Muhammad Abu Shabab