By: Madeeha Al-A’raj

The National Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements ( nbprs ) stated in its latest weekly report, that Jewish Fund announced the resumption of supporting settlement and Judaization activities in the West Bank by planting trees in the Negev desert under the sign of afforestation, encouraged by Netanyahu, in order to confiscate more of the Palestinians’ lands, amid popular protests including the one in the Sheikh Jarrah, and many other areas in the West Bank, as is the case in the Negev, knowing that the Board of Directors of the Fund voted to transfer NIS 20 million this year in favor of settlement projects in various fields, including the enhancement of natural forests, and the structural plans for settlements

Moreover, the Fund approved a sum of NIS 1.6 million to control lands in the "Gush Etzion" settlement near Bethlehem. In Hebron also, a plan for afforestation will be launched at a cost of up to NIS 2 million in the Negev, besides the construction of houses for settlers, and the development of farms at a cost of up to NIS 12 million, and NIS 2 million for infrastructure activities.

In Jerusalem, the Planning Committee at the Occupied Jerusalem Municipality decided to change the name of the complex adjacent to the Hebrew University in Mount Scopus from student housing in favor of a settlement project for young families on long-term rent, as it gave the final approval of the plan.

The so-called planning committee approved a plan to build small-scale settlement units for rent in place of student housing.

The municipality revealed that the plan - the Jerusalem Arts Campus - will be on an area of about 1.6 dunums near the cultural centers and the arts campus, which is in the final stages of construction.

The plan includes the construction of 220 small settlement units used for long-term rental in a 10-story tower.

The plan also includes a commercial area of 500m2, a kindergarten, and about 300m2 for cultural areas, as part of the campus activities that will be built on the ground floors.

In a dangerous escalation in the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish Associations are preparing to attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the coming month of Ramadan, which coincides with the @Hebrew April@ and is punctuated by 5 occasions and holidays for the Jews named; the pre-ordered Passover of Seven Days, the Day of Fasting Al-Bakr, and Yum Hashwa, to carry out their schemes in storming Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The alleged sentence called for an intensification of incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan, and not to submit to the endowment’s position calling for stopping the proposals throughout the month, according to the commonplace and the status quo since the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, and intensified with the beginning of the next Ramadan.

Besides, the occupation authorities are expanding the targeting of Palestinian land with the aim of promoting settlement construction until it extended its hand to areas classified according to agreements between the two sides as Areas A, especially in the governorates of Bethlehem and Hebron, according to a recent report issued by the Institute of Applied Sciences (ARIJ), according to a scheme that dates back to the year 1983, when it was frozen, at which point it was expanded and announcing the start of its implementation.

They announced the approval of the settlement plan n. 51/21, where the so-called “administration officer for environmental protection affairs in the Israeli Civil Administration” requested to declare an area of 7,048 dunums of Palestinian land belonging to the eastern governorates of Bethlehem and Hebron as a “nature reserve”, specifically the lands of the towns of Sa’ir and Al-Sheikh In Hebron Governorate, and the eastern wilderness of Bethlehem Governorate.

It appears that the occupation authorities, according to (ARIJ), are planning to merge the so-called eastern Gush Etzion settlement bloc - which includes the illegal Israeli settlements in Nicodim, Tekoa, Kafr Eldad, Ma'aleh Amos, Asfar Masad, and Abi Nahal - with the "Gush Etzion West" settlement bloc, by allocating private spaces for it to expand in the future at the expense of the surrounding Palestinian territories.

The occupation authorities are also planning to build new Israeli bypass roads in the area that would create geographic and demographic coherence between the two settlement blocs, without paying attention to the negative consequences that this entails with regard to the surrounding Palestinian communities and their residents, such as the bypass road with the aim of linking the settlement bypass road n. 912/2 Etzion East in the Israeli settlements in the south, built on the lands of the Hebron Governorate.