The Nahal Heletz settlement shrinks Palestinian land and poses ‘imminent menace’ to a World Heritage Website.
Israel has accredited a brand new unlawful settlement on a UNESCO World Heritage Website close to Bethlehem within the occupied West Bank.
Bezalel Smotrich, the nation’s far-right finance minister, stated on Wednesday his workplace had “accomplished its work and printed a plan for the brand new Nahal Heletz settlement in Gush Etzion”, a bloc of unlawful settlements south of Jerusalem.
“No anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist resolution will cease the event of settlements,” stated Smotrich, who additionally heads civil affairs on the Ministry of Defence, on X. “We’ll proceed to combat in opposition to the harmful venture of making a Palestinian state by creating details on the bottom.”
All of Israel’s settlements within the West Financial institution, occupied since 1967 and inhabited by some 700,000 Israeli settlers – together with occupied East Jerusalem – are thought-about illegal under international law, no matter whether or not they have Israeli planning permission.
Reporting from Ramallah, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh stated Smotrich “is flexing his muscle tissue, telling the world that he cares very, little or no about worldwide legislation”.
The venture, stated Odeh, “devours what’s left of [Palestinian] land within the Bethlehem space, which has shrunk to almost 10 p.c of its unique measurement”. It’s positioned “not simply in any UNESCO World Heritage Website, but additionally in … the one place left for agriculture, for picnics, planning and constructing”.
Muhannad Ayyash, an analyst with the Palestinian suppose tank Al-Shabaka, informed Al Jazeera that Israel’s “final purpose” was to “develop Israeli Jewish sovereignty over the whole lot of the land, from the river to the ocean”.
“So, the strategic utility for Israel is all the time the identical, whether or not it’s on this web site or one other web site. It’s all the time [to] fragment the Palestinian inhabitants and, critically, create what it calls details on the bottom […] with a view to cease the creation of the Palestinian state,” he stated.
Heritage web site
The brand new 60-hectare (148-acre) settlement, which acquired preliminary approval together with 4 others in June, lies between Gush Etzion and Bethlehem.
The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now stated it’ll flank homes within the Palestinian village of Battir, a World Heritage Website identified for its stepped agricultural terraces, vineyards and olive groves.
The group denounced the plan, calling it a “wholesale assault” on an space “famend for its historical terraces and complex irrigation programs, proof of 1000’s of years of human exercise”.
Israel’s actions posed “an imminent menace to an space thought-about to be of the best cultural worth to humanity”, the organisation stated in a press release.
Based on a European Union report, final yr Israel superior plans for 12,349 properties to be constructed within the occupied West Financial institution, probably the most in 30 years.
