JERUSALEM, Jul 4 (NNN-WAFA) – The Israeli regime approved the appropriation of 12.7 square km of land, in the occupied West Bank, marking the largest single appropriation in about three decades, an Israeli settlement monitor group said yesterday.
Peace Now, an Israeli-based settlement watchdog, said in a statement that, the Custodian of the State’s Property in the Civil Administration, an Israeli body that approves construction in the West Bank, recently declared the seizure of this large land in the Jordan Valley.
According to the group, this is the largest area designated for appropriation since the Oslo Accords, a set of peace agreements signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in 1993.
In 2024 alone, about 23.7 square km of the West Bank lands have been declared “State Lands” by the Israeli regime, reported Peace Now.
The declaration of “State Land” in the West Bank is a bureaucratic procedure used by the Israeli regime, to revoke Palestinian ownership rights to the declared lands, which would be leased exclusively to Israelis, for reshaping land use and building settlements.
The Zionist regime seized the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and expanded settlements there ever since. The international community widely considers the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where the Palestinians wish to establish their future state, an obstacle to achieving peace between the regime and the Palestinians.
The move is likely to stoke further tensions in the region, which is already experiencing increasing violence, following the regime’s brutal onslaught in the Gaza Strip.– NNN-WAFA