Occupied Jerusalem-SANA
Kisan is a Palestinian village located about 20 km east of the city of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. For more than two years, the Israeli occupation bulldozers have continued to raze large areas of its lands to expand settlements established in the area in an attempt to Judaize them.
The village is located in a strategic area and connects a number of Palestinian villages and is surrounded by Israeli settlements on three sides. The occupation established a settlement on its lands in the mid-eighties of the last century, followed by a second settlement in 2000 and a third in 2014, which makes the villagers who are prevented by the occupation from constructing any building besieged with settlements.
The village, which is the main gateway to the city of Bethlehem, the occupation is trying to isolate it from its Palestinian surroundings and link it to a settlement built on the lands of the village of Minieh to the west. 48 thousand and 700 dunums of the village's lands to expand the settlement built on it, which threatens to separate it completely from its Palestinian surroundings.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the settlement scheme on the lands of Kisan village, stressing that the Israeli authorities continue to perpetuate their occupation of Palestinian land by escalating settlement operations and seizing lands, which undermines any chance of establishing an independent Palestinian state geographically connected to its capital, Jerusalem.
The ministry called on the international community and the United Nations to assume their responsibilities and implement Security Council Resolution 2334 of 2016, which affirms the illegality of Israeli settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories and calls for its cessation.
In a statement to SANA reporter, Mahmoud Sobh, owner of land seized by the occupation in the village, details the daily battle they are waging against the occupation and its settlers, saying: They uprooted 320 olive trees from my land in Kisan village, which has an area of 40 dunums. The settlers carry out daily attacks on us, as they seized a mountain hill Adjacent to my farm to expand a settlement adjacent to our lands, they bulldozed and uprooted an entire ten dunums planted with olive trees and built a settlement road there within the Judaization scheme targeting the area.
Sobh indicated that all the farmers in the villages of Kisan and Rashida in Bethlehem and Sa'ir and Al-Sheikh in Hebron are subjected to shooting, beatings, chases and arrests by the occupation and settler gangs..Despite the death journey they are going through to reach their lands, they continue their steadfastness and cultivate their land, adding: They uproot trees Olives and crops, and we replant them, and we will not leave them until martyrdom, because we are the owners of the land without which our lives are easy. As for the occupation, it will end no matter how long it takes.
Director of the Office of the Settlement and Wall Resistance Commission in Bethlehem, Hassan Breijieh, indicated that the occupation aims, through this settlement plan, to seize about 49,000 dunums of the lands of Kisan village, which has an area of 134,000 dunams, to separate the village from the city of Bethlehem, indicating that the lands seized by the occupation are considered It is one of the most fertile agricultural areas in Bethlehem and represents an economic source for hundreds of Palestinian farmers.
Breijieh pointed out that the settlers have begun to build settlement roads in the depth of these lands to expand a settlement established on Palestinian lands in that area, indicating that the occupation has already begun to implement this scheme by preventing farmers from entering their lands and bulldozing those lands and shooting anyone who tries to approach his land .
Breijieh revealed a series of steps to resist the new colonial scheme, similar to what happened in the village of Beita in Nablus, Kafr Qaddoum in Qalqilya and Khan al-Ahmar in Jerusalem, stressing that the Palestinian people will not allow the occupation to implement this colonial settlement scheme.
For his part, the coordinator of the popular committees to resist the wall and settlements, Salah Al-Khawaja, said that the colonial scheme in Kisan in Bethlehem is part of the process of colonial annexation carried out by the occupation to separate Palestinian cities from each other and establish more settlement units, pointing out that the area targeted by the new scheme is one of the most beautiful natural areas. In the West Bank and enriched it with resources, especially agricultural and animal wealth.
Al-Khawaja explained that the occupation established 27 settlements and dozens of outposts in Bethlehem, and they are being expanded continuously, as the occupation seized more than 40 percent of Bethlehem's lands to expand settlements.
The Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouti, stressed that resistance, steadfastness and steadfastness is the approach of the Palestinian people to confront settlement plans, which are a war crime, indicating that the international community does not move a finger towards the crimes of the occupation. The people of Nablus and Qalqilya in the face of the settlement incursion and the processes of Judaization.
Mohammed Abu Shabab