The sound of Jewish settler bulldozers as they sweep and dig rocks to build infrastructure for five settlement outposts surrounding the village of Jalud south of Nablus is always heard. This has caused the loss of agricultural and pastoral land of the village which has been plagued by Jewish settlements.
Abdullah Mohammed the head of the village’s council confirmed that the Israeli bulldozers continue to raze the village’s land on which many settlement outposts are built as well as the construction of new roads water reservoirs on the high mountains and housing units.
He added that the village is no longer able to bear the losses caused by the settlements. It has drained the majority of the village’s land where the settlements’ expansion does not stop with the aim of establishing a very large settlement bloc in the area.
Farmer Ahmad Alabid from Jalud said: “The settlements are causing the depletion of grazing areas and agricultural fields. The settlers claim that the land belongs to them and that we the owners of the land must leave in a clear theft under the threat of arms and the protection of the occupation army.”
As for why the Israeli occupation concentrates on settlements south of Nablus researcher Khalid Maali said that this is due to the presence of ancient monuments which religious extremist settlers think come second in importance to that of occupied Jerusalem as well as because of Jalud’s geographic and strategic location as it is located in the middle of the West Bank north of Ramallah and east of Salfit and south of Nablus.
Ghassan Daghlas the official in charge of the settlement profile in the northern West Bank said a new settlement outpost had been established on the lands of Jalud village south of the village school where settlers erected a large tent and built wooden rooms in the area.
Five outposts
He added that settlement expansion is taking place in five sites in the lands of Jalud such as in the settlements of Shvut Rachel and Amihai al-Jadida where construction work is underway for building new houses and infrastructure.
At the same time construction work is taking place at the outposts of Hayah Ish Kudash and Kida in addition to the construction of settlement outposts outside these outposts in order to expand them at the expense of Palestinian lands to bring more Jewish settlers in.
The settlements and outposts built on the lands of the village of Jalud south and east witnessed an unprecedented construction bulldozing and settlement expansion in order to impose facts on the ground before the official declaration by the occupation authorities of legitimizing the five settlement outposts thus forming of a huge settlement bloc on an area of more than 8 km2 of the lands of Jalud which is classified as area C of the West Bank.
Jalud is a Palestinian village located 26 km to the southeast of the city of Nablus. It is located 790 meter above the sea level and it is part of the Nablus governorate.
Its lands are surrounded by the villages of Qasri Qaryut and al-Mughair. Its population in 1922 was estimated at 124. In 1945 there were about 300 people living in the village.
