QALQILIA, Saturday, March 2, 2019 (WAFA) – Israeli authorities handed today notifications to confiscate 15 dunums of land in the village of Azzun, to the east of Qalqilia in the occupied West Bank, a local activist said.
Mahmoud Abul-Sheikh, an official who monitors Israeli settlements in the area, told WAFA that Israeli forces notified Palestinians from the village about their intention to confiscate the 15 dunums for the expansion of a bypass road serving illegal Israeli settlements.
According to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, “Over the years, Israel has used a number of legal and bureaucratic procedures in order to appropriate West Bank lands, with the primary objective of establishing settlements and providing land reserves for them.”
“Using primarily these five methods: seizure for military purposes; declaration of state lands; seizure of absentee property; confiscation for public needs; and initial registration, Israel has managed to take over about 50% of the lands in the West Bank, barring the local Palestinian public from using them.”
M.N
