RAMALLAH, Monday, April 6, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli forces today seized a container and dismantled a stall in Khirbet Qalqas village, south of Hebron city, said WAFA correspondent.
He confirmed that Israeli forces escorted a bulldozer into the village, where the heavy machinery seized a shipping container and dismantled a stall for selling scrap belonging to Mohammad Abu Sneineh.
Located 4 kilometers to the south of Salfit city, Khirbet Qalqas has a population of some 1,800 and occupies a total area of 7,000 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 ed control over a small pocket of land occupying 300 dunams, accounting for almost 4 percent of the village’s total area. In contrast, Israel maintains control over the remainder, classified as Area C.
Israel has seized at least 1,000 dunams (14 percent) belonging to the village and blocked the road linking the village with the rest of Hebron city since 2000. Ever since, residents have had to cross the settler-only by-pass road Route 60 on foot or travel an alternative route to reach the rest of the city. Six Palestinians have been killed crossing Route 60 in recent years.
Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.
There are almost 834,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The number of settlers has almost tripled since the Oslo Accords of 1993, when settlers’ number estimated 252,000. Illegal colonial settlements have leapt from 144 to 515 in that time.
Israel’s nation-state law states that building and strengthening the settlements is a “national interest.”
K.F.
