Israel has illegally claimed 23.7 square kilometers (9.15 square miles) of West Bank land since the beginning of the year, says the organization Peace Now.
Israeli authorities have given the green light to the largest land grab in the West Bank in more than three decades, as the pace of land grabs in the occupied Palestinian territory reaches a peak, according to an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog.
The planned seizure, approved by the Israeli government late last month but only made public on Wednesday, targets 12.7 square kilometers of land in the Jordan Valley, the NGO Peace Now said.
The move brings to 23.7 square kilometers the total area of the West Bank that Israel has claimed as its own this year. That makes 2024 the busiest year for land seizures by Israel, according to the Observatory.
The Jordan Valley plots mentioned are contiguous and located northeast of Ramallah, the city where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered.
By declaring them state land, the Israeli government opened them up for rental to Israelis and closed them to private Palestinian ownership.
“Taking us away from peace”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, considered illegal under international law, are often cited as the main obstacle to any lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.
“Today, it is clear to everyone that this conflict cannot be resolved without a political settlement that establishes a Palestinian state alongside Israel,” Peace Now said in a statement.
“Yet the Israeli government chooses to make things difficult and distance us from the possibility of peace and an end to the bloodshed.”
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who oversees settlement planning and lives in a settlement himself, has vowed to flood the West Bank with a million new settlers.
Smotrich is a prominent leader among the radical nationalist political forces on which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government depends.
“Netanyahu and Smotrich are determined to fight against the entire world and against the interests of the Israeli people for the benefit of a handful of settlers who receive thousands of dunams as if there were no political conflict to resolve or no war to end,” Peace Now said. In Israel, one dunam is equal to 1,000 square meters.
The occupied West Bank is home to more than 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship. The three million Palestinians living in the territory are subject to Israeli military rule and have been subjected to almost daily military raids since the start of the Gaza war in October.
During these incursions, Israeli forces destroyed Palestinian roads and homes, arrested and detained 9,510 people, and killed 553 people.
Tensions in the territory “have increased and have now reached a boiling point,” warned Tel Aviv Tribune’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah.
