BETHLEHEM, Monday, July 13, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli forces razed a large tract of land belonging to Kisan village, east of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, said a municipal source.

Deputy mayor of Kisan Ahmad Ghazal confirmed that Israeli forces provided protection to a bulldozer that razed a tract of land covering approx. ten dunams belonging to the village, and installed power poles around it.

He elaborated that land was bulldozed to expand the nearby Israeli colonial settlement outpost of Ibei Hanahal, also written as Ibei Hanachal, established on 166 dunams of land belonging to Kisan in 1999.

Located 11 kilometers to the south of Bethlehem city, Kisan has a population of some 600 and occupies a total area of 133,330 dunams.

Under the Oslo Accords, an agreement made 25 years ago that was supposed to last just five years towards a self-governing country alongside Israel, the Palestinian Authority was given limied control over a tiny pocket of land occupying 112 dunams, accounting for less than 1 percent of the village’s total area.  Israel maintains control over 108,952, classified as Area C, accounting for 81.7 percent. The remaining part of 24,266 dunams, accounting for 18 percent, is classified as nature reserve.

Israel has established three colonial settlements, namely Ma‘ale Amos and Mizpe Shalem besides to the settlement outpost of Ibei Hanahal on lands confiscated from the village. It has confiscated further land for the construction of settler-only by-pass road no. 901 and road no. 3698, which extend for 16.1 kilometers on the village land.

Israel has constructed a section of the apartheid wall, confiscating and isolating some 87,344 dunams of fertile land, accounting for 65.5 percent of the village total area, for colonial settlement activities and pushing the villagers into a crowded enclave, a ghetto, surrounded by walls, settlements and military installations.

K.F.