BETHLEHEM, Wednesday, December 16, 2020 (WAFA) – Palestinian villagers Tuesday night fended off an Israeli settler attack against Kisan village, located to the east of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to sources.
Mayor of Kisan, Ahmad Ghazal, told WAFA that 20 Israeli settlers in three vehicles sneaked their way into the village, and pelted some of the villagers’ houses with stones before they were confronted by the villagers and forced to retreat.
The settlers came from the nearby colonial settlement of Eibi Hanhel, also written as Eibi Hankhal, established on lands seized from the village.
Ghazal added that this was not the first settler attack against the village as settlers and Israeli forces have frequently targeted the villagers and their properties. Such attacks included home and shack demolitions and land confiscation for the benefit of colonial settlement expansion.
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 ofIbei 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.T./ K.F.
