Report: The Occupation Government Employs Colonizer Terrorism to Implement Displacement Plans

SadaNews - The National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance to Settlement stated today, Saturday, that the Israeli occupation government is utilizing the violence and terrorism of colonizers to serve plans for displacement and ethnic cleansing.

The office added in its weekly report, which monitors the period from November 8 to November 13, that the violence of settlers in the West Bank knows no bounds, as it has become unmanageable—even for leaders of the Israeli opposition, beginning with Yair Lapid, passing through Avigdor Lieberman, and ending with Yair Golan, who consider it a disgrace for the state of occupation.

The report continued: According to data provided by the occupation army and the so-called internal security service (Shabak), which in any case does not reflect the truth, 1,575 incidents of "national crimes" occurred in the West Bank since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip, including about 704 in the first ten months of this year, during which firearms, cold weapons, and incendiary materials were used, with 368 classified as "popular terrorism," meaning intentional, resulting in the injury of 174 Palestinians since the beginning of the year, an increase of 12 percent compared to last year.

According to the report, Eyal Zamir, the Chief of Staff of the occupation army, misled when he said that these settlers had "crossed red lines" and that his army "would not tolerate a criminal minority that distorts the image of Israelis," while he knows that this out-of-control terrorism is being protected in the field by his army and blessed by the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir alliance, and is being covered up by the American administration. This terrorism has a clear function: to prepare the conditions for executing a plan to expel and displace Palestinians from their lands and homes.

The report indicated that dozens of residential gatherings, especially in areas classified as Area C, have become targets for displacement risks at the hands of the occupation army and, at times, the settlers. It explained that Palestinians in these gatherings rely on agriculture and sheep herding, and their lives have turned into hell after the occupation authorities have systematically exercised policies aimed at displacing these communities by creating an unbearable living reality, including imposing strict bans on construction in these gatherings and refusing to connect them to basic utilities such as electricity and water and refraining from paving roads to facilitate access.

The report detailed that the pace of displacement has increased over the past two years. Since October 2023, dozens of Palestinian gatherings have been forcibly displaced, with the number of displaced individuals exceeding two thousand as a result of the violence. Thousands more, living in dozens of Palestinian residential gatherings, face a real danger of displacement due to daily settler attacks, especially from colonial outposts and pasture farms that have spread during the war on the Gaza Strip.

According to the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights "B'Tselem", these outposts and farms, which were established since October 2023 with the help of the occupation state and number in the dozens, have no aim other than to displace residential gatherings and seize as large an area of land as possible. The violence of settlers living in these colonial outposts has escalated and become a terrifying daily routine for the residents of these gatherings, including serious physical assaults on the population, settler invasions of the gatherings and homes of residents during the day and night, igniting fires, expelling Palestinian shepherds from grazing areas and farmers from their fields, killing and stealing livestock, destroying crops, stealing equipment and personal property, and closing roads.

Indeed, according to "B'Tselem", 2,700 Palestinian citizens have been displaced during the war. In Hebron Governorate, displacement occurred at about eight sites affecting 64 families comprising 489 individuals, of whom 211 are minors. In Bethlehem Governorate, displacement occurred at six sites affecting 46 families comprising 211 individuals, of whom 99 are minors. In Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, 14 sites were involved affecting 177 families comprising 1,150 individuals, of whom 508 are minors. In Jerusalem Governorate, two families were displaced in the vicinity of Hizma (18 individuals, of whom 4 are minors) while the number of sites affected in Nablus Governorate reached four, affecting 17 families comprising 126 individuals, of whom 57 are minors. Furthermore, the displacement impact in Tubas and the Jordan Valley was significant over four sites affecting 75 families comprising 435 individuals, of whom 207 are minors; in Jericho and the Jordan Valley, displacements occurred in two sites affecting 43 families comprising 262 individuals, of whom 126 are minors. Displacement operations also took place in Khirbet Abu Rish in Salfit Governorate, affecting 9 families comprising 47 individuals, of whom 23 are minors.

The center points out that all this transpired under the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government, which has concentrated the efforts of displacement mainly on certain areas in the West Bank, most notably alongside Ramallah-Bireh Governorate, the southern Hebron Mountains, where about a thousand Palestinian citizens, half of them children, live under the threat of displacement from their homes and villages, and in the vicinity of Jerusalem City and East Jerusalem Area, where approximately 3,000 Palestinians from the area are threatened with displacement, including 1,400 Palestinians residing in Area (E1), which Israel has turned into an area of influence for the "Ma'ale Adumim" settlement to create an urban connection between the settlement and Jerusalem City and the Jordan Valley, where thousands of Palestinian citizens live in about twenty pastoral gatherings in their lands or on the edges of lands declared by the occupation army as "live-fire zones".

The report from the National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance to Settlement indicated that in recent weeks, there has been a focus on Palestinian pastoral gatherings, which the occupation army and settlers have placed on the agenda of demolition and displacement operations. These gatherings are located around Jerusalem, especially the "Ma'azi Jaba" gathering northeast of Jerusalem and the Khirbet Um al-Khair gathering in Masafer Yatta south of Hebron.

Both gatherings have recently become direct targets for the harassment and provocations of the occupation army and the criminal acts of colonial groups (hilltop youth and price tag groups), prompting the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to issue a warning in its latest reports on the developments of the humanitarian situation in the West Bank on the seventh of this month regarding the serious repercussions stemming from the policies of the occupation authorities and the practices of settlers.

The office's report noted that the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government does not take heed of such warnings as long as they remain limited to verbal positions and do not translate into deterrent actions by governments, especially in European Union countries, which are the most important economic and commercial partners with the occupation state, and as long as the current American administration continues its policy of favoring the occupation army and the practices of settlers, deciding to lift sanctions on those settlers previously classified by the past American administration as "terrorists" and imposed sanctions upon them and the entities that support and provide care for them.

The report added that the Bedouin gatherings in the vicinity of Jerusalem find themselves facing imminent forced displacement, especially with the commencement of the colonial E1 project, as is clear from what is happening on the ground in terms of measures and practices. In mid-August, crews from the so-called "Civil Administration" alongside the occupation army distributed about 42 demolition notices for facilities in the areas of Al-Mushtal, Wadi Jamal, and Wadi Al-Hawd in the town of Al-Eizariya east of Jerusalem, which are notifications related to establishing the colonial road that Israel calls "the fabric of life" and which Palestinians refer to as the "sovereignty road" in reference to its political goal of imposing sovereignty over the West Bank. The Palestinian Bedouin gatherings, numbering 22, face a real threat to their existence, with expectations for their displacement continuing as construction proceeds on colonial projects in the E1 area.

The report continued that demolition notices coincide with terrorist practices by settlers, as the series of these practices against Bedouin gatherings in the area aiming to displace them remains unbroken, especially against the citizens of "Ma'azi Jaba". The target is clear: to seize hundreds of dunams of land to expand the "Adam" settlement established by the occupation on Jab'a lands and connect it with the "Benjamin" settlement, thereby creating geographical continuity between the two settlements.

The "Ma'azi Jaba" gathering includes about 200 Palestinian citizens, including about 40 families and 70 children under the age of eighteen, living under difficult conditions that lack the minimum requirements for life.

It is worth noting that the occupation authorities published more than a year ago a detailed organizational plan to expand the "Jaba’ Benjamin" settlement by constructing a new colonial neighborhood on the lands of Jab’a town over an area of 150 dunams on the northern edge of the settlement on an opposite hill and grazing lands, aiming to augment the aforementioned settlement against the "Sha'ar Benjamin" settlement. However, the "Ma'azi Jaba" gathering has become the dividing line between these two settlements, which explains the concentration on "Ma'azi Jaba" for its displacement.

The report also indicated that the village of Um Al-Khair has also recently become a direct target for the displacement policy. At the end of October, the occupation authorities delivered final demolition notifications affecting a number of residential and service facilities in the village during a raid conducted in conjunction with the so-called "Civil Administration", amidst fears of executing a mass demolition campaign in the coming days.

The notices included 14 homes and facilities, including the Um Al-Khair community center. The village of Um Al-Khair is one of the most targeted residential gatherings for demolition in Masafer Yatta, having witnessed more than 20 demolition operations since 2007, affecting over 100 residential, agricultural, and service facilities, with the most recent occurring in February. The village is in dire humanitarian conditions amid escalating colonial assaults, as settlers have recently established a colonial outpost within its lands whilst simultaneously pursuing land confiscation and oppression policies. In any case, Um Al-Khair remains a symbol of the steadfastness of Masafer Yatta, a steadfastness illustrated by the martyrdom of citizens Suleiman Al-Hathaleen and Awda Al-Hathaleen at the hands of terrorist settlers.

The report clarified that this village, located east of Yatta town south of Hebron, occupies an area of one thousand dunams, purchased by citizens displaced by the occupation state from the "Tel Arad" area in Beersheba in 1948. Since that time, they have lived here and engaged in agricultural and pastoral activities in the surrounding lands that span 6,000 dunams among agricultural lands and mountains. Only about 300 individuals from the Bedouin Al-Hathaleen clan remain in the village, besieged by colonial forces and deprived of all necessities of life, and they face the imminent threat of displacement at any moment. This prompted the United Nations Office of Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories last week to warn of the demolition orders issued by the occupation authorities on the 28th of last month in the village, which forebodes a new wave of forced displacement. In that warning, the UN office called on the occupation authorities to immediately halt the collective demolition orders targeting 11 homes and vital community infrastructure and around 35 extended families living there since being expelled from their lands in the Negev during the mass forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948.

On another note, and in a development that foreshadows a worsening of the security situation in the West Bank and the escalation of settler terrorism to unprecedented levels, the so-called Settlements Council distributed about 60 thermal drones to settlements and pastoral farms in the West Bank with the support of the colonization department in the civil administration, managed by the extremist minister Bezalel Smotrich, and financed by millions of shekels collected by Council head Yossi Dagan in a fundraising campaign in the United States. At the distribution celebration of these drones, Dagan stated: "We are here to win".

The report pointed out that Dagan holds an influential position in the Likud party and is known for his extremism and support for hilltop youth and other terrorist settler organizations operating in the settlements, and he had participated with Smotrich in calling for the eradication of the town of Hawara from existence in March 2023.