NABLUS, Thursday, July 08, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers today seized a large tract of land belonging to Jalud village, south of Nablus city, according to local sources.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli colonial settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said that the settlers escorted bulldozers to a 20-donums tract of land, located in Shi‘b Khallet al-Wasta in the village, and started to raze it.

The landowner was identified as Rashid Muhammad.

This came just few days after Israeli forces sealed off the road linking Jalud to the nearby village of Qusra, isolating over 600 donum of agricultural land as a prelude to expand the Israeli colonial settlement of Esh Kodesh.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

Settlers‘ violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.

Over 700,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.

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 that passed last July stated that building and strengthening settlements as a “national interest.”

K.F.