MIDDLE EAST: Humanitarian organisation says Israel is annexing private West Bank land for settlements and security zones

Record ID: 792189

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Humanitarian organisation says Israel is annexing private West Bank land for settlements and security zones
  • Date: 12th September 2008
  • Summary: ISRAELI SOLDIERS APPROACHING PALESTINIAN LANDOWNERS AND REUTERS CAMERA CREW ISRAELI MILITARY VEHICLE NEAR SETTLEMENT ISRAELI SOLDIERS TALKING TO REUTERS CAMERA CREW SAYING 'I AM TAKING YOUR CAMERA, THIS IS CLOSED MILITARY ZONE, TELL HIM, TELL HIM, WHY I HAVE TO TAKE THIS'
  • Embargoed: 27th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAD1I7ORXV3R7BJ8F20VCXWQBZX
  • Story Text: Humanitarian organisation reports says Israel is annexing West Bank territory in order to create security zones around Jewish settlements, denying Palestinian farmers access to their land.
    Israeli authorities and settlers have seized large tracts of land in the occupied West Bank for security zones around Jewish settlements beyond an Israeli-built barrier, a human rights group said on Thursday (September 11).
    In a new report, the Israeli B'Tselem group said some 12 settlements east of the barrier had been fenced off separately in the framework of an official "Special Security Area" (SSA) plan, blocking Palestinian farmers from reaching their fields.
    "It is not new houses, necessarily, in terms of the expansion, but new lands have been taken around very many settlements, both in an official way that Israel is erecting new fences around settlements as a security measure," B'Tselem Executive Director Jessica Montell told Reuters Television.
    B'Tselem, which opposes Israeli settlement on territory occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, estimated the overall area of some settlements included in the plan had more than doubled in size.
    Some 70,000 settlers live beyond the barrier of barbed wire-tipped fences and cement walls Israel is constructing in the West Bank, and security authorities view their settlements as particularly vulnerable to attack.
    B'Tselem said it could give only a rough estimate of the total size of the territory closed to Palestinians but that at least 1,126 acres (456 hectares) had been "unofficially annexed" outside the 12 settlements.
    It said half of the closed-off tracts are privately owned by Palestinians.
    Control of the land, the report said, was achieved by fencing them off or through attacks by settlers and sometimes soldiers against Palestinians who venture near them.
    "You have pirate efforts of the settlers themselves. Acts of violence, that very clearly de-mark areas around the settlement that Palestinians are not allowed to enter," Montell added.
    Asked about the B'Tselem report, the Israeli army said it had established security zones around settlements after they had been attacked numerous times by Palestinians and dozens of Israeli civilians had been killed.
    "The use of these zones has been approved a number of times by the Israeli Supreme Court. Any building in these zones is illegal," the army said in a written statement.
    One of the Jewish settlements mentioned in the report is Karme Zur near the Palestinian town of Hebron, where Palestinian land owners from near by villages say they are denied access to their land.
    "As you see, we have not even arrived and the settler came to prevent us from standing in our land, so what can we do? They do not allow us in any way to enter our land. Since I have been following this topic I can tell you the situation has been as such since 2002," Issa Slaiby said after a security guard from the settlement approached a Reuters television crew, and demanded they turn off their cameras, before he called for backup.
    "In 2005 we got a ruling from the (Israeli) supreme court that allows us to farm our lands, and this ruling stands and includes the land owners. Regardless of that, the Israeli Defence Forces, or what is called the Israeli Defence Forces, prevent us from farming our land," Slaiby said.
    "They see the land is not being farmed for three to four years, and the law gives them the right to confiscate it. Therefore, this is how they act: they prevent people from reaching their land for two to three years, and then they announce that the land is abandoned and as a result they claim it," another landowner, Mohamad Madyak, said.
    As the Reuters camera crew was interviewing the two landowners approximately 500 meters from the entrance to the settlements, Israeli soldiers approached, detained the two men and confiscated their camera and tape.
    The soldier at the scene said that the reason for the arrest was that the crew was filming in a closed military zone, but a military spokesperson could not confirm this was the case.
    According to the spokesperson, the soldiers arrived at the scene because of the crew's proximity to unspecified military facilities. Filming military installations is illegal under Israeli law. The Reuters crew said they were unaware of any military facility in the region.
    The Reuters crew was released after a few hours. The tapes and camera gear were returned to them.
    Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat says he is well aware of the trend mentioned in the B'Tselem report.
    "Every other settlement has maybe a hundred times the planning and zoning of the size of the built-up area. This is what is undermining our ability to reach an agreement. This is what destroys the credibility of the peace process. So either, we talk about a two state solution without settlements, or settlements will continue but we should stop talking about the two state solution," Erekat told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, referring to the U.S.-brokered efforts to achieve a peace accord.
    "The status of these issues, the settlements in the Palestinian territories in general is currently under negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, and whatever security measures that are taken on the ground do not effect these negotiations," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor in Jerusalem.
    Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon has recently proposed offering compensation now to settlers living beyond the West Bank barrier who agree to relocate to Israel or to major settlement enclaves it intends to keep in any peace deal with the Palestinians.
    Israel says the barrier, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice because it is being built on occupied territory, keeps Palestinian suicide bombers out of its cities.
    The Palestinians call the project a land grab and say settlement expansion could deny them a viable and contiguous state in the West Bank.
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