An official Palestinian report on Saturday revealed that the Israeli government uses investment as a tool to impose Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank by launching huge investments in the Jewish settlements illegally built on privately-owned lands there.
The report issued by the National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance of Settlement noted that the Israeli government has allocated 417 million shekels ($117 million) to promote settlement in the Dead Sea area east of the West Bank and attract more Israeli settlers to the Jordan Valley.
The Israeli government claimed that the stepped up settlement construction in the Dead Sea area is aimed at reviving tourism there and addressing drought challenges in the area “given that the Dead Sea is an indispensable national wealth”.
Israel unceasingly seeks to impose its sovereignty over the West Bank by annexing Area C which covers 60% of the West Bank’s area and annexing some settlements in Jerusalem like Ma’ale Adumim.
These Israeli schemes thwart any dream of an independent Palestinian state as they are intended to turn the West Bank into small isolated cantons among huge settlements occupying the larger part of its lands.
According to official statistics the settlement construction has quadrupled in 2018 compared to 2017. The Israeli government has so far announced the establishment of 16000 settlement units distributed to 160 settlements and 120 outposts in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
