NABLUS, Friday, September 03, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli
forces today quelled a rally against land pillage in Beita
town, south of Nablus, injuring 20 Palestinians, according to medical sources.
Ahmad Jibril, the head of
the Emergency and Ambulance Department at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society
(PRCS), said that Israeli forces opened fire towards the villagers who
protested the pillage of their land to construct a new colonial settlement atop
Jabal Sbeih (Sbeih Mountain) near the town.
He added that two protestors were injured by
rubber-coated steel bullets in their feet, another by a tear gas canister, in
addition to 15 others who suffocated from tear gas inhalation.
He pointed that two others sustained injuries due to
falling from high places after being chased by the soldiers.
The residents of Beita and
the surrounding villages have been holding weekly Friday rallies to protest the
construction of the new colonial settlement of Givat Eviatar atop Jabal Sabih as well as the seizure of lands belonging to the villagers
of Beita, Huwarra, and Za‘tara to inaugurate a new settler-only bypass road.
Israeli forces have used fatal violence to disperse
the rallies, killing six Palestinians from the town and injuring over 600
others in almost a month.
In addition to Mount Sabih,
Israeli forces have erected another colonial settlement outpost atop Mount Al-Arma, north of Beita, a few
months ago, as both mounts enjoy a strategic location as they overlook the
Jordan Valley, a fertile strip of land running west along the Jordan River
which makes up approximately 30% of the
West Bank.
Seizing the two hilltops represents a panoptical
defensive tool as they would grant the Israeli occupation with a panoramic view
over the Jordan Valley and the whole district of Nablus. This is why the
Israeli occupation authorities have assigned them a place in its settlement
expansion project.
The construction of the two colonial outposts atop
Mount Sabih, south of Beita,
and Mount Al-Arma, north of the town, besides to a
bypass road to the west is an Israeli measure to push Palestinian villages and
towns into crowded enclaves, ghettos, surrounded by walls, settlements and
military installations, and disrupt their geographic contiguity with other
parts of the West Bank.
The number of settlers living in Jewish-only colonial
settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of
international law has jumped to over 700,000 and colonial settlement expansion
has tripled since the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993.
Israel’s nation-state law, passed in July 2018,
enshrines Jewish supremacy, and states that building and strengthening the
colonial settlements is a “national interest.”
K.F.
