Bethlehem/PNN/ By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The National Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements ( nbprs ) stated in its latest weekly report , that Bennett’s plan to develop infrastructures and encourage visits to the Western Wall i.e. Al-Buraq, was approved by the Israeli Occupation Government last week. It is a NIS 110 million - about -$- 35 million - five-year plan. Its budgetary will be followed-up by the PM s Office, the defense, finance, education, interior, transportation, tourism, public security, culture and sports, immigration and absorption, and science and technology ministries. Knowing that the number of visitors of the Western Wall between 2015- 2020 , was about 12,000,000 million.
Bennett said, “The plan includes continuing the momentum of developing the place, responding to the visits of students, newcomers and soldiers, developing new educational programs, supporting transportation services and developing new methods that allow access to the Western Wall through modern technological platforms.”
Within the context, At the same time, the Moshe Leon’s municipality in Jerusalem submitted a petition to the local court in the city to demolish an Islamic Complex including Al-Rahman Mosque.. It is about 100 year old mosque with a golden dome, that was -restore-d last year, which didn’t please the settlers who argued that its Dome is similar to the Dome of the Rock, and they filed a complaint to demolishing it under the pretext that it was built without a permit.
At the same time, the District Planning and Construction Committee in the occupation municipality agreed to deposit a plan to build 1,465 settlement units between Jabal Abu Ghneim “Har Homa”, “Givat Hamanos”, and Beit Safafa called “The Lower Canal Neighborhood”, and another discussion regarding plans to build a a new settlement complex in the Attalah Al-Faranseiah will be held.
Thus, the Peace Now Movement called for the immediate cessation of the plan, and other parallel projects, which were approved on the 5th of this month as they are based on occupied Palestinian lands, affect the two-state solution, and cut off communication between occupied East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The left and center parties, and the coalition parties that support the possibility of two states for two peoples demanded that efforts have to be exerted to stop such plans.
In a barbaric step that violates the international law, and the Israeli law, more than 100 Israeli policemen surprised the Salheia family in the occupied Jerusalem and arrested its members including activists before demolishing the house and turning it into rubble.
The European -union- has described settlement expansion, demolitions and evictions, carried out by the occupying authorities, as illegal under international law, exacerbating tensions, threatening the viability of the two-state solution and reducing the prospects for achieving a lasting peace.
The EU also urged to stop all settlement activities, and to reverse its decision to expand settlements east of occupied Jerusalem, and expressed their deep concern about the decision to advance plans to build hundreds of new settlement units. In turn, the UN Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wencesland, called on the occupation authorities to end the displacement of Palestinians, expressed his concerned about the possibility of evacuating Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods in occupied Jerusalem.
Moreover, settlers closed the major junctions in the West Bank and revelled on all streets from the far north to the south, and attacked Palestinian vehicles, after they went out at a call by the extremist Jewish settler groups in marches in various parts of the West Bank, including Jerusalem and Hebron. On social media, the goal of these demonstrations is to call for a ‘Jewish state’, under the title Israel is in danger’. We want a Jewish state.’
