7 jan 2017
A specialized report in the Israeli settlement affairs unveiled a plan by Occupied Jerusalem’s municipality to start building 17 settlement units in Ras al-Amud neighborhood to the southeast of occupied Jerusalem with the beginning of the New Year.
The report issued on Saturday by the National Office for Defending Land and Resisting Settlement revealed that these units constitute the first phase of the construction of Ma’alot David outpost and its 104 settlement units added to Ma'ale Zeitim outpost which includes 116 settlement units planted at the heart of Ras al-Amud.
It pointed out that this step comes in favor of the settlement societies and to promote the Israeli occupation authorities' (IOA) settlement expansion toward the neighborhood.
The National Office warned of a project aiming to annex Ma'ale Adumim, the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank, to Jerusalem under an Israeli scheme to thwart any possibility to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The Office noted that implementing this racist project will cut the West Bank apart and negatively affect the villages and towns surrounding the holy city.
A number of officials in the Israeli municipality declared the municipality's intention to bring out dozens of settlement schemes that remained locked in inside drawers during the presidential term of the US president Barack Obama after the Republican candidate Donald Trump won the American elections. Trump is famed for his support for Israel and the settlements, and he has previously announced his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.
Last Wednesday, the Israeli municipality decided to postpone its approval for the construction of thousands of settlement units near Jerusalem until Trump takes office.
On Thursday, the US House of Representatives adopted with majority a draft resolution that denounces the UN Security Council resolution No. 2334 which was issued last month condemning the Israeli settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories, and considers it an obstacle to the peace process.
The UN Security Council adopted on 23rd December 2016 a resolution condemning the Israeli settlement activities, which was tabled by four countries (New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal, Venezuela) after Egypt withdrew it.
14 countries (out of the 15 members of the Security Council) voted in favor of the resolution, while the US abstained rather than vetoing the resolution.
The countries that filed the draft resolution considered the Israeli settlements illegal as they threaten the two-state solution and the peace process.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the resolution and considered it "a slap to Israel", while the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the resolution and described it as "shameful and disgraceful".
The report issued on Saturday by the National Office for Defending Land and Resisting Settlement revealed that these units constitute the first phase of the construction of Ma’alot David outpost and its 104 settlement units added to Ma'ale Zeitim outpost which includes 116 settlement units planted at the heart of Ras al-Amud.
It pointed out that this step comes in favor of the settlement societies and to promote the Israeli occupation authorities' (IOA) settlement expansion toward the neighborhood.
The National Office warned of a project aiming to annex Ma'ale Adumim, the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank, to Jerusalem under an Israeli scheme to thwart any possibility to establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The Office noted that implementing this racist project will cut the West Bank apart and negatively affect the villages and towns surrounding the holy city.
A number of officials in the Israeli municipality declared the municipality's intention to bring out dozens of settlement schemes that remained locked in inside drawers during the presidential term of the US president Barack Obama after the Republican candidate Donald Trump won the American elections. Trump is famed for his support for Israel and the settlements, and he has previously announced his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.
Last Wednesday, the Israeli municipality decided to postpone its approval for the construction of thousands of settlement units near Jerusalem until Trump takes office.
On Thursday, the US House of Representatives adopted with majority a draft resolution that denounces the UN Security Council resolution No. 2334 which was issued last month condemning the Israeli settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories, and considers it an obstacle to the peace process.
The UN Security Council adopted on 23rd December 2016 a resolution condemning the Israeli settlement activities, which was tabled by four countries (New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal, Venezuela) after Egypt withdrew it.
14 countries (out of the 15 members of the Security Council) voted in favor of the resolution, while the US abstained rather than vetoing the resolution.
The countries that filed the draft resolution considered the Israeli settlements illegal as they threaten the two-state solution and the peace process.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the resolution and considered it "a slap to Israel", while the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the resolution and described it as "shameful and disgraceful".
6 jan 2017
Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon
Jewish state cuts portion of its regular contributions, totaling more than $40 million, allocated 'to anti-Israel bodies,' such as UNRWA.
Israel announced Friday it is cutting approximately $6 million in its annual dues to the United Nations this year to protest last month's Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as "a flagrant violation under international law."
Israel's UN Mission said the amount represents the portion of Israel's contribution to the UN's regular budget totaling more than $40 million allocated "to anti-Israel bodies."
It named the UN agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, The Division for Palestinian Rights, the committee investigating Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights, and information programs on "the Question of Palestine."
"It is unreasonable for Israel to fund bodies that operate against us at the UN," Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said. "The UN must end the absurd reality in which it supports bodies whose sole intent is to spread incitement and anti-Israel propaganda."
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, asked to comment, said: "We have not been informed."
Israel's UN Mission said the cut in funding is the first in a series of steps under consideration by the Foreign Ministry and the mission in reaction to the recent Security Council resolution.
The Obama administration's decision to abstain and allow the UN Security Council to approve a long-sought resolution condemning Israeli settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution was a sharp rebuke to a longstanding ally and a striking rupture with past US vetoes.
Israel's UN Mission said it will move forward on additional initiatives "aimed at encouraging structural change within the UN with the ultimate goal of ending anti-Israel activities" after Donald Trump becomes president of the United States on Jan. 20.
The president-elect has criticized President Barack Obama's green light for the Security Council condemnation.
On Thursday, the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan resolution rebuking the United Nations for criticizing Israeli settlements and declaring unwavering support for Israel. The non-binding resolution insists that the United States reject any future UN actions that are similarly "one-sided and anti-Israel."
Jewish state cuts portion of its regular contributions, totaling more than $40 million, allocated 'to anti-Israel bodies,' such as UNRWA.
Israel announced Friday it is cutting approximately $6 million in its annual dues to the United Nations this year to protest last month's Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as "a flagrant violation under international law."
Israel's UN Mission said the amount represents the portion of Israel's contribution to the UN's regular budget totaling more than $40 million allocated "to anti-Israel bodies."
It named the UN agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, The Division for Palestinian Rights, the committee investigating Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights, and information programs on "the Question of Palestine."
"It is unreasonable for Israel to fund bodies that operate against us at the UN," Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said. "The UN must end the absurd reality in which it supports bodies whose sole intent is to spread incitement and anti-Israel propaganda."
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, asked to comment, said: "We have not been informed."
Israel's UN Mission said the cut in funding is the first in a series of steps under consideration by the Foreign Ministry and the mission in reaction to the recent Security Council resolution.
The Obama administration's decision to abstain and allow the UN Security Council to approve a long-sought resolution condemning Israeli settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution was a sharp rebuke to a longstanding ally and a striking rupture with past US vetoes.
Israel's UN Mission said it will move forward on additional initiatives "aimed at encouraging structural change within the UN with the ultimate goal of ending anti-Israel activities" after Donald Trump becomes president of the United States on Jan. 20.
The president-elect has criticized President Barack Obama's green light for the Security Council condemnation.
On Thursday, the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan resolution rebuking the United Nations for criticizing Israeli settlements and declaring unwavering support for Israel. The non-binding resolution insists that the United States reject any future UN actions that are similarly "one-sided and anti-Israel."
2 jan 2017
Palestinian sources warned Monday of Israeli intents to establish an illegal settlement outpost on Palestinian land in eastern Nablus.
Head of Deir al-Hatab village council, Abdul Kareem Hussein, said Israeli settlers on Sunday started the construction of abodes and set up mobile homes and a water tank in Ras al-Ein area, to the east of the village.
He added that over recent days Israeli settlers bulldozed a Palestinian agricultural land in Ras al-Ein so as to open a new access road into the area.
Israeli soldiers have, meanwhile, been deployed in the territory so as to protect the settlers, at the same time as they banned the Palestinians from reaching their land lots, covering an overall area of some 500 dunums.
Abdul Kareem warned that such measures make part of Israeli attempts to establish a new settlement outpost at the expense of Palestinians’ private lands.
Israel stepped up illegal construction of settler homes in the occupied West Bank just one week after a UN Security Council resolution deemed settlement activity in the area illegal.
Head of Deir al-Hatab village council, Abdul Kareem Hussein, said Israeli settlers on Sunday started the construction of abodes and set up mobile homes and a water tank in Ras al-Ein area, to the east of the village.
He added that over recent days Israeli settlers bulldozed a Palestinian agricultural land in Ras al-Ein so as to open a new access road into the area.
Israeli soldiers have, meanwhile, been deployed in the territory so as to protect the settlers, at the same time as they banned the Palestinians from reaching their land lots, covering an overall area of some 500 dunums.
Abdul Kareem warned that such measures make part of Israeli attempts to establish a new settlement outpost at the expense of Palestinians’ private lands.
Israel stepped up illegal construction of settler homes in the occupied West Bank just one week after a UN Security Council resolution deemed settlement activity in the area illegal.
1 jan 2017
Local residents from Deir Ballut town in Salfit has complained that the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) destroyed one of their power lines east of the town during the ongoing bulldozing activities in the area.
The local residents told a news reporter from the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) that the power line became a constant threat to their lives, especially the lives of their children, and they stressed the need to fix it quickly.
The Israeli authorities, however, do not seem to care about repairing the power line after it collapsed, the residents voiced fears.
All the Israelis care about is to expand the illegal settlement of Leshem at the expense of the Palestinian towns, they said.
The residents expressed hope that the international community and its organizations could move to pressure the IOA to stop its settlement activities in their area.
Leshem is an illegal Israeli settlement located west of Salfit Governorate and five kilometers away from the Green Line. It is located near the illegal settlements of Eli Zahav and Peduel in the south.
The construction of the Leshem settlement started in 2013 on a vast tract of Palestinian land annexed from the nearby Kafr ad-Dik and Deir Ballut towns. Today about 100 Jewish families are living in Leshem settlement with many other thousands expected to settle in the settlement once its housing and infrastructure building is completed.
The local residents told a news reporter from the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) that the power line became a constant threat to their lives, especially the lives of their children, and they stressed the need to fix it quickly.
The Israeli authorities, however, do not seem to care about repairing the power line after it collapsed, the residents voiced fears.
All the Israelis care about is to expand the illegal settlement of Leshem at the expense of the Palestinian towns, they said.
The residents expressed hope that the international community and its organizations could move to pressure the IOA to stop its settlement activities in their area.
Leshem is an illegal Israeli settlement located west of Salfit Governorate and five kilometers away from the Green Line. It is located near the illegal settlements of Eli Zahav and Peduel in the south.
The construction of the Leshem settlement started in 2013 on a vast tract of Palestinian land annexed from the nearby Kafr ad-Dik and Deir Ballut towns. Today about 100 Jewish families are living in Leshem settlement with many other thousands expected to settle in the settlement once its housing and infrastructure building is completed.
Israel’s education minister and leader of the far right, pro-settlement Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett said Sunday morning he would propose a bill by the end of the month to annex the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.
According to Israeli news sites, Bennett said during a government meeting that he expected "all the ministers in the government” to support the proposal.
Maale Adumim is the third largest settlement in population size, encompassing a large swath of land deep inside the occupied West Bank. Many Israelis consider it an Israeli suburban city of Jerusalem, despite it being located on occupied Palestinian territory in contravention of international law.
Calls to annex the massive settlement -- to pave the way for the annexation of the majority of the occupied West Bank -- have gained momentum among Israel’s lawmakers and ministers following last week’s passage of a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements and reaffirming their clear illegality.
In the days following the resolution’s passing, reports emerged that Israel was advancing plans for hundreds of new settlement units, and Israel's Jerusalem municipality apporved a plan to build a three-story building for Jewish settlers in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem.
Bennett reacted to the UN Security Council's resolution by calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rescind his support for the two-state solution and the creation of a Palestinian state, which Bennett perceives to be a security threat to the state of Israel.
“No resolution can change the fact that this land, Jerusalem, is our capital. And no people can be a conqueror in their own land. That’s why this resolution, like many of the earlier resolutions, will be thrown into the dustbin of history,” Bennett said.
Following the election of Donald Trump as the next US president, Bennett said that a Trump presidency would mark the end of a push for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
“This is the position of the President-elect, as written in his platform, and it should be our policy, plain and simple. The era of a Palestinian state is over,” he said.
Netanyahu has warned Bennett and Israeli politicians not to make public declarations related to annexation for fear that the calls would spark further action by the international community and the outgoing Obama administration; the US allowed Resolution 2334 to pass by not vetoing it at the Security Council, with US Secretary of State John Kerry defending the move in a blistering speech further condemning Israeli actions in the occupied territory.
Kerry criticized Netanyahu for publicly claiming to advocate a two-state solution while simultaneously championing settlement policy to appeal to an increasingly right-wing government and Israeli public.
“His current coalition is the most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” Kerry said. “The result is that policies of this government -- which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ -- are leading in the opposite direction, toward one state,” Kerry said.
While members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two-state solution, Israeli leaders have instead shifted further to the right, with more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current Israeli government having publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state.
A number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace, proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.
Meanwhile, a recent report by human rights group B'Tselem argued that under the guise of a "temporary military occupation," Israel has been "using the land as its own: robbing land, exploiting the area’s natural resources for its own benefit and establishing permanent settlements," estimating that Israel had dispossessed Palestinians from some 200,000 hectares (494,211 acres) of lands in the occupied Palestinian territory over the years.
B’Tselem highlighted the “key role” of Israeli settlers in further isolating Palestinians from their lands, either through the establishment of outposts officially unrecognized by the Israeli government, or through the regular use of violence or threats of violence against Palestinians.
The movement of Israeli settlers taking over Palestinian land, and further displacing the local Palestinian population has been a "stable" Israeli policy since the takeover of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967, B'Tselem reported, underscoring that all "Israeli legislative, legal, planning, funding, and defense bodies" have played an active role in the dispossession of Palestinians from their lands
According to Israeli news sites, Bennett said during a government meeting that he expected "all the ministers in the government” to support the proposal.
Maale Adumim is the third largest settlement in population size, encompassing a large swath of land deep inside the occupied West Bank. Many Israelis consider it an Israeli suburban city of Jerusalem, despite it being located on occupied Palestinian territory in contravention of international law.
Calls to annex the massive settlement -- to pave the way for the annexation of the majority of the occupied West Bank -- have gained momentum among Israel’s lawmakers and ministers following last week’s passage of a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements and reaffirming their clear illegality.
In the days following the resolution’s passing, reports emerged that Israel was advancing plans for hundreds of new settlement units, and Israel's Jerusalem municipality apporved a plan to build a three-story building for Jewish settlers in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem.
Bennett reacted to the UN Security Council's resolution by calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rescind his support for the two-state solution and the creation of a Palestinian state, which Bennett perceives to be a security threat to the state of Israel.
“No resolution can change the fact that this land, Jerusalem, is our capital. And no people can be a conqueror in their own land. That’s why this resolution, like many of the earlier resolutions, will be thrown into the dustbin of history,” Bennett said.
Following the election of Donald Trump as the next US president, Bennett said that a Trump presidency would mark the end of a push for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
“This is the position of the President-elect, as written in his platform, and it should be our policy, plain and simple. The era of a Palestinian state is over,” he said.
Netanyahu has warned Bennett and Israeli politicians not to make public declarations related to annexation for fear that the calls would spark further action by the international community and the outgoing Obama administration; the US allowed Resolution 2334 to pass by not vetoing it at the Security Council, with US Secretary of State John Kerry defending the move in a blistering speech further condemning Israeli actions in the occupied territory.
Kerry criticized Netanyahu for publicly claiming to advocate a two-state solution while simultaneously championing settlement policy to appeal to an increasingly right-wing government and Israeli public.
“His current coalition is the most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” Kerry said. “The result is that policies of this government -- which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ -- are leading in the opposite direction, toward one state,” Kerry said.
While members of the international community have rested the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the discontinuation of illegal Israeli settlements and the establishment of a two-state solution, Israeli leaders have instead shifted further to the right, with more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current Israeli government having publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state.
A number of Palestinian activists have criticized the two-state solution as unsustainable and unlikely to bring durable peace, proposing instead a binational state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians.
Meanwhile, a recent report by human rights group B'Tselem argued that under the guise of a "temporary military occupation," Israel has been "using the land as its own: robbing land, exploiting the area’s natural resources for its own benefit and establishing permanent settlements," estimating that Israel had dispossessed Palestinians from some 200,000 hectares (494,211 acres) of lands in the occupied Palestinian territory over the years.
B’Tselem highlighted the “key role” of Israeli settlers in further isolating Palestinians from their lands, either through the establishment of outposts officially unrecognized by the Israeli government, or through the regular use of violence or threats of violence against Palestinians.
The movement of Israeli settlers taking over Palestinian land, and further displacing the local Palestinian population has been a "stable" Israeli policy since the takeover of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967, B'Tselem reported, underscoring that all "Israeli legislative, legal, planning, funding, and defense bodies" have played an active role in the dispossession of Palestinians from their lands
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