Settlements
- Settlements: An Introduction
- Settlements: The Legal Framework
- Settlements: The Colonization Policy
- Settlements: The Socio-Economic Impact
- Settlements: The Statistics
- Settlements: The Links
- Settlements: Activism
The ISSUE of settlements, and Jewish colonization continues unabated with the expansion of existing Jewish colonies and the construction of new ones. Although the Oslo Agreements prohibited the parties from carrying out activities to change the status of the occupied territories, under the Israeli Labour government the colonist population increased by 50% and most existing Jewish colonies were expanded. The Likud administration invested 1.4 million NIS in Jewish colonies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the most substantial and extreme support ever for colonisation activity.
Jewish colonisation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories brings a whole range of violations of human rights, such as land confiscation and home demolition. Despite the Oslo Accords, an average of 37, 500 dunums of land is confiscated every month for Jewish colonies. Between the signing of the accords and March 1999, a total of 140,187 dunums of land have been confiscated. Much of this land was privately-owned by Palestinians, confiscated under the most dubious of legal pretexts and in breach of international law.