The Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) continue to confiscate more lands of the West Bank province of Salfit in order to expand Ariel settlement and build dozens of new settlement units on Palestinian lands.
Farmer Mahmoud Al-Rimal one of the owners of the lands threatened by settlement expansion said that the IOA and its settlers seized more than 5000 dunums in order to enlarge the Ariel settlement and steal the lands of the citizens adjacent to it.
Rimal pointed out that the IOA continues to harass citizens and farmers by leveling and confiscating their lands and impeding their access to them.
For his part Ashraf Zuhd the specialist in settlement activity explained that the IOA was targeting the northern area of Salfit and had confiscated hundreds of dunums of its lands.
Zuhd added that these settlement projects are part of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s promises to his voters that he will expand and build new settlement outposts in the area.
There are 18 Palestinian communities in Salfit compared to 24 Israeli settlements between residential and industrial areas. The percentage of lands allocated for Palestinian construction in the province is only about 6% of the total area while 9% are allocated for the Jewish settlers.
Ariel is considered one of the largest settlements in the West Bank and it was built on thousands of dunums of Palestinians’ lands. The IOA seeks to annex it to Israeli sovereignty within a scheme that includes the Jordan Valley and several settlements built on the lands of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The IOA expands the Jewish-only settlements and connects them to water electricity and sewage networks to form a settlement bloc that controls an area of up to 70% of Salfit’s lands.
Salfit is the second province after Jerusalem in the settlement priorities of the IOA with the aim of separating the northern and southern areas of the West Bank and controlling groundwater in the province.
Salfit is choking from the large number of settlements and industrial zones on its lands as they exceed the number of villages and towns of the province. These Israeli settlements cause pollution in the environment and sabotage agricultural lands.
The IOA plans to expand existing settlements and confiscate more Palestinian lands to build new settlements especially on fertile lands that are rich in natural resources.
