Over the past five years four illegal settler farms in the occupied West Bank have taken over Palestinian territory the size of the city of Holon (some 19000 dunams or 4700 acres) or the cities of Bnei Brak (7300 dunums) and Lod (around 12000 dunums) combined according to Haaretz newspaper website.
“Employing systematic violence and terror the residents of the four outposts aided by the army have blocked Palestinian access to land totaling 20866 dunums which the Palestinians had used to cultivate crops and graze livestock” Haaretz explained.
“The record is held by Uri’s Farm on the Umm Zuqa preserve in the northern Jordan Valley which was established in 2016 and prevents Palestinian communities from accessing over 14000 dunums of land.”
“Next is the outpost of Zvi Bar Yosef from the settlement of Halamish erected three years ago. It prevents the farmers of Jibiya Kobar and Umm Safa from accessing 2500 dunums of their lands.”
“A shepherd’s farm southwest of Samu established this year has so far taken over 1850 dunums belonging to the village of Zanuta. In 2020 Mann Farm was built east of the town of Yatta taking over 1537 dunums from nearby villages.”
Haaretz affirmed that there is certain data referring only to these four individual farms out of some 50 similar outposts created over the past decade and 150 outposts dating back to the 1990s.
“The residents of many of these outposts use violence to take over Palestinian lands – which means that the total area they have appropriated is much larger than the above figure” the newspaper underlined.
