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Israeli settlers rush to take over privately owned Palestinian land

Tel Aviv, 27 September – The 10-month settlement freeze which the Israeli government had promised its US allies had hardly expired as the Zionist “pioneers” of the occupied West Bank celebrated the resumption of their construction frenzy. In the settlements of Ariel, Revava, Yakir and Kochav Hashacher construction companies were back at work, with building activities to resume tomorrow in several other Zionist colonies such as Shavei Shomron, Adam, Oranit, Shaarei Tikva, Kedumim and Karmei Zur, for an estimated total of 2.000 housing units.

Already hours ahead of the official expiration date of the settlement freeze, yesterday morning Israeli settlers seized dozens of acres of privately owned Palestinian land in the villages of Deir Estia and Hares to the west of Salfit, in the West Bank.

According to the mayor of Deir Estia, the Israeli settlers put twenty mobile houses on agricultural land belonging to two families in the town and began dredging the land surrounding the caravans encroaching on the fields of other families as well. Contemproarily Israeli settlers grabbed agricultural land belonging to Palestinians in the village of Burin, south of Nablus and on the outskirts of Yatta, on the southern slopes of Hebron. In an article published on the eve of the expiration of the settlement freeze, the renowned Israeli organization B'Tselem showed that the Zionist settlements are not only a political and diplomatic issue, as what they have been discussed on the international level, but that they essentially prevent the Palestinian indigenous population from realizing their property rights to live in dignity on their own land.

In the face of this development, to which already more than 42 percent of the West Bank's land not including Jerusalem has fallen victim, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying: "I call on (Palestinian Authority) President Abbas to continue the good and sincere talks that we have just started in order to reach a historic peace agreement between our two peoples." From Paris, where he held a joint press conference with the French President Nikolas Salrkozy, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas promised that he would not immediately back out of direct negotiations with Israel, but would submit his decision to an Arab League summit, expected to be held on 4 October. Sarkozy, who echoed the US administration and the UN Secretary General expressing his disappointment over Israel's failure to impose another settlement construction freeze, promised his government would host a Euromed summit next month.

http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=31741&lang=en