BETHLEHEM, Wednesday, June 24, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli forces Wednesday morning ordered a Palestinian to evict his plot of land in al-Khader town, located to the south of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, local sources said.
Ahmad Salah, an activist, told WAFA that Israeli forces handed Rizq Salah a notice, ordering him to evict his 2-donum plot of land, planted with olive trees, adjacent to the encroaching colonial settlement of El‘azar and gave him seven days to do so.
He noted that the Salah, the landowner, reclaimed his land, and planted it with olive trees.
This is not the first time for Salah’s land to be leveled. Israeli forces had razed it back in 2006, and destroyed Salah’s water well.
Located 4 kilometers to the west of Bethlehem city, al-Khader has a population of some 12,500 and occupies a total area of 8,280 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 some 1,200dunams, accounting for almost 14.5 percent of the village’s total area. In contrast, Israel maintains control over the remainder, classified as Area C.
Since the start of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, like so many other villages in Palestine, al-Khader has been subjected to almost continual land theft for Israeli settlements, bypass roads, and military installations.
Israel has constructed Efrat and NeveDaniyyel colonial settlements on an area of 6,329 dunums of Palestinian land, including a portion confiscated from al-Khader. It has also constructed a section of the apartheid wall, isolating some 5,620 dunums of the town’s land for colonial settlement activities and pushing the villagers into a crowded enclave, a ghetto, surrounded by walls, settlements and military installations.
It has confiscated more land for the construction of a tunnel and a crossing, controlling Palestinian movement from Bethlehem city and the western countryside villages.
K.T./ K.F.
