Bethlehem/PNN/ Report By: Madeeha Al-A’raj

The National Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements ( nbprs ) stated in its latest weekly report, that by all means and no means the Israeli Occupation State is doing its utmost to capture the Palestinian lands either through using military force or by fraud and scam operations. Anyway, the State and all its official arms’ role in these operations is obvious. Knowing that there are scores of fictitious companies with different names that cheat the Palestinians under the auspices of the Occupation Authorities, which in these cases delude the international community and try to convince it that building, and expanding settlement is in line with the law, and that is carried out on purchased land.

Recently, the Kern Kaimet of Israel or what is known as the Jewish National Fund is an official Israeli body that is very concerned in encouraging and developing settlements as its’ administration has approved in principle a draft resolution that enables it to buy lands near isolated settlements, especially, in Nablus, Jenin, and Salfeet.

The final approval is expected on April 22nd. Knowing that the Kern Kaimet was established in 1901 to be a tool of the Zionist Movement, and the Jewish Agency in controlling the largest possible area of land, and allocating it for construction and settlement expansion.

The Keren Kaimet’s activities were frozen after Oslo, and its activity was carried out by the Settlements Council Yesha, but yeas ago it returned to practice its activity after funds were pumped into its accounts in 2014, which exceeded NIS 2,400 million. It has become commonplace to see advertisements for this Fund to promote new settlement units with a focus on isolated settlements, which Yitzhak Rabin used to define them as political settlements to distinguish them from the security settlements, according to his claim, and which Benjamin Netanyahu defined in the Deal of the Century as settlement enclaves, referring to the settlements of Elon Moreh and Itamar, Shafi Shimron, and the grandsons of Gilad and others. He added these are areas of high priority for Kern Kaimet: the suburbs of Jerusalem, the northern and central Jordan Valley, the central West Bank between Nablus and Ramallah, and the areas adjacent to the 1948 lands.

Besides, the occupation government, the Yesha Settlements Council, and the Jewish National Fund’s activities, there is a network of bogus companies in some countries abroad, including Arab countries, that are trying to buy land around settlement outposts and then give them to settlers. As Watan Company, Wahib Company, and the Holy Land Company forge documents as is was the case in Silwad and other places. Pinchas Farcheltine, the man of settlements and the former CEO of the Yesha Council, revealed during an interview with the Israeli Channel 2 TV that he had the idea of establishing the Al-Watan Real Estate Company, which specializes in buying land from Palestinians for the benefit of settlers without knowing the landowners as far as he claims. Farcheltine claimed that there are other companies with different names other than the Al-Watan Company in order to buy land from the Palestinians without knowing that they are selling their lands to the settlers.

As for the continuing settlement activities, the Israeli Local Planning and Building Committee in Jerusalem approved the establishment of a new residential area in Jabal Abu Ghneim settlement, which includes the construction of 540 new housing units. The project forms two parts of the "Homa Shmuel 50" plan in the area east of the "Heroes Marine" crossroads. The western part of the existing neighborhood and the area of the project is about 28 dunums and includes the construction of two towers, each consisting of 30 floors, in the northern part, and 3 buildings on 12 floors in the southern part.

The Planning and Construction Committee" revealed a new Judaization project that links northern Jerusalem with four new tunnels instead of one. The committee announced the deposit of a local structural map under the name of a project to build 4 tunnels at the French Hill settlement Junction to separate the transportation traffic in northern Jerusalem, and to link the road network between the bypass road (443), Tel Aviv - west of Jerusalem in its eastern part, towards the valley settlements.

This project is part of linking settlements in the area E1east of Jerusalem, such as “Maale Adumim” and “Kfar Adumim,” and surrounding them, with the settlements inside the city and the Palestinian Coast. The project also aims to link settlements in northeastern Jerusalem, Adam, Givat Ze'ev, and Nabi Ya`qub "with the Ghor region and connecting it with the western side of the city, in order to facilitate the settlers' access to the territories occupied in 1948, the southern and northern areas of occupied Palestine, and the southern Dead Sea.

A number of settlement projects were also approved in the West Bank, including a detailed plan no. 1/510/13 for the settlement of Kiryat Arba, built on the lands of the village of Khallet Al-Batma in Hebron on an area of 35 dunums for the construction of public buildings, institutions, and open areas, and another detailed plan no. 24 / 121 for Ornit settlement, built on the lands of the village of Seniria on an area of 19.2 dunums to establish 66 housing units and submitted the detailed outline plan no. 1/8/225 for the settlement of Ma'aleh Mikhmas built on the lands of the village of Deir Dibwan on an area of 502 dunums for the establishment of new housing units, an open public area, and the detailed structural plan no. 1/3/414 of the settlement of Asfar built on the lands of the village of Sa'ir and Al-Sheikh on an area of 275 dunums to build 120 housing units and public institutions, at the same time, the Civil Administration announced the acquisition of an area of 2089 m2 from Tulkarm Governorate, villages of Al-Ras, Kafr Soor under the Public Interest Expropriation Law no. 321/1969 to expand a road.