Palestine condemns Israel's land seizure in West Bank

By Qais Abu Samra

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - Palestine condemned on Wednesday Israel's confiscation of 441 dunams (44.1 hectares) of Palestinian land west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

“We condemn the rapidly accelerating racist colonial policies of Israel to seize thousands of dunams of Palestinian land,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The Israeli government continues its blatant defiance of relevant UN resolutions, aiming to bring about profound changes to the historical, political, legal, and demographic reality of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and undermining the possibility of implementing the two-state solution.”

The ministry called for imposing "deterrent international sanctions" on Israel and forcing Tel Aviv "to halt settlement activities, dismantle settler militias, and disarm them.”

On Tuesday, the local Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said that the Israeli army had seized 441 dunums of land in the villages of Shabtin, Deir Ammar, and Deir Qaddis west of Ramallah.

It accused the Israeli army of seeking to seize all lands surrounding the Israeli settlements of Nili and Naale, which are built on Palestinian land.

Last month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke, in leaked audio, about preventing the occupied West Bank from becoming part of an independent Palestinian state and strengthening Israeli control over it.

Despite continued international criticism of the illegal Israeli settlement construction on Palestinian lands, the Israeli government has taken several steps in recent months to accelerate settlement activity across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio