Qalqilya- In a parallel line of violence and oppression practiced by the Israeli occupation army against the Palestinians in the West Bank, the settlers also carried out their various organizations and names, and their violations were no less than what the army did.
The settlers moved to more horrific stages that went beyond incitement, attack, and even direct killing, and reached the point of “making up” and drawing “scenarios” in preparation for implementing their plans, which escalated after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” with the aim of displacing the Palestinians.
The “Qalqilya cover scenario” – as described by the “Israel Today” newspaper and repeated several times through the occupation media – has become closer to these fabrications.
allegations
The settlers in the “Kochav Yair” and “Tsorigal” settlements north of Qalqiliya (behind the wall inside the Green Line) claimed that they were afraid of Palestinian “vandals” from Qalqiliya and the villages adjacent to their settlements through tunnels, and they claimed that they heard the sounds of “digging and shaking.”
Although the occupation army denied the existence of tunnels, the settlement councils said that they were not convinced by the army’s position, and that they were working to bring in private companies for geological examination to avoid a “terrifying scenario,” as the newspaper put it.
But what prompted all this incitement from the settlers, especially in these times? A question answered by Hossam Abu Hamda, the acting governor of Qalqilya, by confirming that they are “slanders and lies spread by the settlers to justify a major plan being hatched against Qalqilya, which is quieter compared to other governorates in the West Bank.”
Hossam Abu Hamda told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the occupation targeted – and still is – Qalqilya as a result of its contact as a border governorate with the Green Line between Palestine occupied in 1967 and 1948, and that it has been confiscating – for some time – its lands and stealing them through settlement, and that what the settlers are spreading about tunnels and other things is baseless. He is healthy.
He believed that the occupation’s recent intensification of its military incursions into Qalqiliya, which included killing, demolishing, and arresting citizens and sabotaging the infrastructure, were preludes to a major plan that it was preparing to pressure the population and forcibly displace them. He added, “We are the ones who have become afraid of the plans of the occupation and its settlers for Qalqiliya in the next stage.”
In parallel with the existing displacement plan in the Gaza Strip, according to Hussam, the occupation is implementing another similar and gradual plan in the West Bank, and what Qalqilya is experiencing confirms this. He said that they are working with all their might to thwart these plans by remaining steadfast in the field and confronting the occupation’s arrogance and arrogance.
He adds that while they document the occupation’s violations and attacks, the Palestinian leadership continues its political and legal role in defending the Palestinian land locally, regionally and internationally.
besieged and restricted
For his part, Walid Assaf, the former Minister of the Wall and Settlement Affairs Authority and the son of the city of Qalqilya, refuted the settlers’ claims, and revealed many reasons for their incitement against the city, seeking to annex it and completely control its lands, “as a dream that the occupation has always had.”
Walid explained to Tel Aviv Tribune Net that Qalqilya’s strategic location is in the weak flank of the occupying state, in addition to its proximity to the Mediterranean Sea (at a distance of 11 km), which is occupied by Israel, and its extension over the western water basin, which constitutes 64% of the West Bank’s groundwater, and its connection to nearby cities – such as Salfit – making it form a block insulating the north from the south.
But Qalqilya, according to Walid Assaf, has long been subjected to almost constant Israeli siege and restrictions, even in the “days of relief” – as he described it – that Gaza and other cities in the West Bank were experiencing.
He reviewed this, saying:
- In 1956, Israel bombed the district headquarters in Qalqilya, and 156 Jordanian soldiers were martyred.
- In 1967, the occupation demolished a large part of its neighborhoods and expelled its residents, but quickly restored them after the intervention of major powers.
- When the Oslo Accords were signed, Israel tried to hold a referendum to annex Qalqilya to it, but the people refused.
- With the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in the year 2000, the occupation built its separation wall that surrounded it from all sides, and it became as if it were inside a bottle, isolating it from its lands, making it an unlivable area.
Within what was known as the Oslo divisions (Areas A, B, and C), only 3% of the lands of Qalqilya Governorate, estimated at more than 170 thousand dunums (a dunum equals 1,000 square metres), were named areas “A” and “B,” and 97% of the remainder were named. Area C, and most of these lands are difficult to reach.
When the Sinai settlements were dismantled after the Camp David peace treaty, the settlers were transferred to the cities of Salfit and Qalqilya, and the Gush Katif settlers in Gaza were also transferred there after their settlements were dismantled and evacuated in 2005.
The wall is another punishment
Since 1975, Israel has punished Qalqilya Governorate with settlements, establishing 25 settlements and outposts and controlling half of its lands. The number of settlers in them is close to the number of Palestinian residents in the governorate, and the extremist settler Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance in the occupation government, lives in the Qaddumim settlement, according to Walid Assaf, Minister of the Wall Affairs Authority. and previous settlement.
The city is surrounded by a separation wall that extends for 40 kilometers and snakes around its lands to isolate it behind itself, and prevents its owners from accessing it except through gates and with special permits, while it keeps its eastern and only entrance as an outlet for the movement of residents, but closes it militarily whenever it wants.
While the occupation refuses to expand the structural plan of Qalqilya Governorate, most of the lands have become outside it, and “half of the Palestinian construction” in the governorate – according to Walid – is now located in Area C, which is under Israeli control, which prevents construction and demolishes it, in addition to the settlement road projects that have besieged the governorate and further isolated it.
On the ground, Israel has worked to curb any resistance emerging in Qalqilya, and has escalated its targeting since the start of the war on Gaza, as it pursued resistance fighters who recently formed the “Leoth Al-Majd Groups” affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades affiliated with the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), according to a statement by journalist Ahmed Shawar. For Tel Aviv Tribune Net.
Israel killed the persecuted leader, Alaa Nazzal, and another resistance fighter, Anas Daoud, in early December, after trapping them inside a vehicle in one of the city’s neighborhoods. It also pursued the resistance that extended outside into the city’s villages, and 7 young men were killed in the town of Azzun, east of it, and another in the neighboring village of Jayus.
Shawar says that Israel violates the city with its daily incursions and provocations of citizens, which refutes any claims made by settlers about the existence of tunnels and other things.
