2023-07-01 23:07:00
Israeli flag flies near the settlement of Ma
The Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu made progress this week in the construction and recognition of colonies in the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians claim to found an independent state, for which the number of homes installed has already reached 13,000 so far this year. , a “record” number that almost triples those of all of 2022, according to information from Israeli NGOs to Telam.
Following a new escalation of violence over the past week in the West Bank, Netanyahu on Monday approved plans to build some 5,700 homes in the Palestinian territorieswhich it occupies militarily and with a civilian population.
Four months ago it already approved the promotion of 7,349 homes.
According to Israeli NGO Peace Nowit is a “record” figure, given that in less than six months of 2023 plans were advanced for more than 13,000 homes compared to more than 4,000 the previous year.
“It is a record, at least since we have kept records, that is, since 2012,” said the agency. Director of External Relations of the organization, Mauricio Lapchik.
The NGO, consulted internationally for its records of the settlements, also estimated that this is one of the highest figures in the “last 30 years.”
The rate at which the plan was approved also indicates an acceleration of the procedures to promote new construction in the colonies.
Whereas in the past the process consisted of about six phases and could last one or two years, now the stages and deadlines have been reduced.
Lapchik explained that before “in most of these phases, the Ministry of Defense and the Cabinet could give their opinion saying whether it was worth moving forward with those plans or waiting, depending on international pressure or the security issue.”
However, the decision-making process and the possibility of influencing them have been limited since February, when the prime minister fulfilled what he had promised his most extreme allies, who are now part of his coalition.
As a pledge to obtain support that allowed him to form a government in December, Netanyahu agreed to transfer to Finance Minister, Religious Zionism party settler leader Bezalel Smotrich, part of the civil administration of the territories occupied, a task carried out by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“All the time that the organizations had to put pressure, to stop it, now we are not going to have it because when Smotrich decides to publish a plan, the plan will already be approved,” Lapchik said.
Smotrich’s new role also opened a debate, regarding international law, on whether this transfer of functions does not mean a greater loss of sovereignty for the Palestinians, since civilian control of the territories is added to the Israeli military occupation.
Peace Now criticized Netanyahu’s management and assured after his decision on Monday that “he is marching in forced stages towards the total annexation of the West Bank.”
In addition, while the “Israeli settlers have a certain process to approve construction plans, for the Palestinians it is much more difficult,” commented the representative of one of the longest-running NGOs, which fights for Israelis and Palestinians to have “a solution of two States”.
outposts
The projects approved by Israel’s Higher Planning Council (HPC) include the regularization of three “outposts.”
Outposts are camps or precarious settlements that settle settlers in the West Bank as a starting point to later demand basic services from the Israeli state, and which can become legalized colonies retroactively.
The news of the expansion of the illegal colonization of the West Bank threatens to escalate one of the most violent periods in years between Israelis and Palestinianswith nearly 200 deaths, mostly Palestinians, so far this year.
The violence had already escalated in 2022, but it grew with the government of the alliance of nationalist, religious and pro-colonial parties, considered the most right-wing in the history of Israel.
Netanyahu had already announced the expansion of Eli last week after Palestinians killed four settlers from the settlement in a shooting attack at a nearby gas station.
“Our response to terror is to hit it hard and build our country,” he said in a statement that day.
Benjamin Netanyahu had already announced Eli’s expansion last week.
In retaliation, settlers set fire to properties and cars in the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya.
He attack on Eli settlers came hours after Israeli soldiers killed seven Palestinians in a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.
“The extreme violence that we have seen in the West Bank in the past week is part of a policy, the policy of occupation, oppression and apartheid,” he told this agency. Ziv Stahl, executive director of Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights NGO working in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The concept of “apartheid” is used in the reports of international organizations such as Amnesty International (AI) and Human Right Watch (HRW), as well as by Palestinian and Israeli NGOs, to define the policy that Tel Aviv promotes towards Palestinians and Arabs. israelis.
“Settler violence is perceived by the Israeli government as a useful tool to oppress the Palestinians and seize their land. The authorities are giving back to the violence by allowing the aggressors to do as they please, giving them military protection, as well as through lack of law enforcement on attacks and illegal construction,” Stahl said.
Last week, Israeli settlers entered the Evyatar outpost, which was uninhabited and held by the military.
Meanwhile, the incumbent settler leader of the Jewish Power party and Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvirwent to Evyatar, demanded to “colonize the Land of Israel” and called for “tearing down buildings and eliminating terrorists.”
All Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law.
Israel makes the difference between settlements with the approval of the authorities and the so-called outposts or “wild”, established without the permission of the Government.
In March, the Israeli Knesset or Parliament repealed a 2005 law that prohibited the installation of colonies in areas of the West Bank that had been evicted by the Israeli government.
The director of Yesh Din asked “the international community to intervene immediately to protect Palestinian citizens”, which, according to her estimates, “Israel neglects in its protection”.
On the same day as Netanyahu’s announcement, the US Democratic government reported that it would stop funding research at Israeli academic institutions in the West Bank.
In this way, he reversed a measure of the former Republican president Donald Trumpwhich challenged the international consensus that Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the 1967 Six-Day War.
However, none of these measures have taken effect so far.
The Palestinians claim those territories to found their long-awaited independent State there.
Some 475,000 Jews reside in settlements in the West Bankamong 2.9 million Palestinians.
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