The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is expected to approve on Wednesday a plan to expropriate 68 dunums (17 acres) of land owned by Palestinians to widen a West Bank road that connects some illegal Jewish settlements between Qalqilya and Nablus.
According to Haaretz news website the anticipated move will take place just one day before Israeli premier Naftali Bennett’s meeting with US president Joe Biden in Washington on Thursday.
In the coming years the Israeli occupation authority intends to build 5650 settler homes in settlements near this route which is called Road 55 Haaretz said.
The plan is opposed by 35 Palestinian plant nursery owners whose lands will be expropriated for the highway project.
Kaed Atta has owned a plant nursery on Route 55 since 2000. He will lose 26 dunums.
Atta says the nurseries along this road employ hundreds of Palestinians including 85 who work for him at his center.
