A specialized report in the Israeli settlement affairs and violations said on Saturday that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) is planning to link the main road network in the occupied West Bank to Israeli cities as part of a strategic plan to boost the settlers’ presence in the West Bank.
The National Bureau for the Defending of Land and Resisting Settlement pointed out that Eli Ben-Dahan the Israeli deputy war minister’s statements revealed that the Israeli authorities will start next week building a bypass road in the West Bank to link Kfar Saba with Nablus “which will provide a big opportunity for annexing the West Bank” according to his statement.
The Bureau quoted Ben-Dahan as saying that the Israeli government is planning to link a main street north of West Bank with the main road which connects the cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv by March 2017.
He also pointed to another plan that envisages linking a third bypass road south of the West Bank which connects Gush Etzion (settlement bloc) south of Bethlehem to al-Khalil.
The report mentioned that Yisrael Katz the Israeli minister of transportation announced a new Hi-Tech transportation system that facilitates movement in al-Khalil settlements that will be launched in January 2017.
The IOA increased its settlement activities in the West Bank in the wake of the UN Security Council resolution delegitimizing all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The resolution was issued after it was presented by New Zealand Malaysia Senegal and Venezuela and endorsed by 14 UNSC members out of 15 with only the US abstaining.
