Fattouh: The confiscation of lands in Nabi Samuel and Beit Iksa is a colonial crime targeting the Judaization of Jerusalem and erasing its identity

SadaNews - The Chairman of the Palestinian National Council, Rouhi Fattouh, said that the decision by the Israeli occupation authorities to confiscate about 109.79 dunams of land from the towns of Nabi Samuel and Beit Iksa, northwest of Jerusalem, constitutes a "complex colonial crime" aimed at entrenching Judaization and enforcing a policy of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement against the Palestinian people.

Fattouh added, in a statement issued by the Presidency of the Palestinian National Council, that the decision is part of a systematic plan to empty the land of its original inhabitants and erase its historical, national, and religious identity. He emphasized that the occupation's use of the pretexts of "public interest" and "development of archaeological sites" is merely a political and legal cover for the seizure of Palestinian lands and the imposition of colonial realities by force, in violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions.

He pointed out that targeting the lands of Nabi Samuel and Beit Iksa, along with the mosque located at the archaeological site, reveals the occupation's attempts to distort history and impose a unilateral narrative based on exclusion and the erasure of the Palestinian Arab, Islamic, and Christian presence in the holy city.

In this context, Fattouh condemned the provocative act carried out by a settler near the Armenian Monastery in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, considering these practices as a deliberate insult to the Christian faith and its holy sites. He noted that they fall within the escalating attacks targeting the Christian presence in Jerusalem, including assaults on clergy and monks and the ongoing incitement against them.

The Chairman of the Palestinian National Council stressed that the crimes and organized violations against Islamic and Christian holy sites require urgent international action to stop the policy of impunity and to hold the leaders of the occupation and settlers accountable for the serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights that they commit.