For many years the Palestinian residents of the Jordan Valley have been subjected to organized attacks by the Israeli occupation authorities and Jewish settler groups with the aim of displacing them and seizing their lands.
Israeli authorities have used all possible ways to take control of Palestinian lands including the policy of establishing agricultural and grazing settlements.
In recent years agricultural settlement activity has increased in the Jordan Valley also known as Palestine’s food basket.
Dairy cows
Speaking to the PIC reporter local activist Aref Daraghmeh said that the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) have established more than 36 settlements and outposts in the Jordan Valley after its occupation in 1967 including 14 agricultural settlements.
The IOA also took control over all the water sources in the area after seizing more than 150 wells he added.
The agricultural settlements in the Jordan Valley Daraghmeh said are considered the “dairy cows” for the Israeli economy.
The land is planted with all kinds of vegetables and fruit trees especially palms and medicinal plants he pointed out.
Daraghmeh further said that over the past 5 years the IOA launched a new settlement policy aimed at stealing what remained of the Jordan Valley’s lands named the grazing settlement policy.
Eight new grazing outposts were established in the Jordan Valley where settlers brought their cows and sheep to graze in Palestinian agricultural lands.
Official Israeli support
For his part the Palestinian official in charge of Israeli settlements file in the northern areas of the West Bank Ghassan Daghlas pointed out that the agricultural settlement policy is one of the Israeli tools to take control over the Palestinian lands in the Jordan Valley.
In an interview with the PIC reporter Daghlas clarified that the agricultural settlement policy is usually linked with placing livestock barracks in the illegal settlements areas or military closed areas to be later granted for settlers.
According to B’Tselem the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea span some 160000 hectares comprising almost 30% of the total West Bank area.
In 2016 approximately 65000 Palestinians and 11000 settlers lived there.
Israel exploits almost all of the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea for its own needs and bars Palestinians from entering or using about 85% of the area: be it for construction laying infrastructure shepherding or farming.
Almost 90% of this region has been designated Area C the West Bank land which remains under full Israeli control and constitutes nearly 40% of all Area C.
Almost 50% of the area are defined as “state land” – more than half of which were already designated as such under Jordanian rule – before Israel occupied the area in 1967; about 46% of the area have been declared closed military zones including the municipal jurisdictions of Israeli settlements and 11 firing zones; some 20% of the area have been declared nature reserves; and other areas have been allocated to settlements’ regional councils.
