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Land and Water Establishment For Immediate Release: Tel: (972) (2) 824559/812364 22 July, 1995 Fax: (972) (2) 811072 email: lawe@netvision.net.il
LAND CONFISCATIONS CONTINUE IN THE WEST BANK
On 20 July, late in the evening, some 50 settlers from Efrat moved onto a hill owned by El Khader residents. They announced the establishment of a new "neighborhood " of Efrat, a common terminology used when establishing a new settlement. This hill was confiscated some time ago and declared state land, and is located about 6 kilometers from Efrat settlement.
By July 21 the settlers already numbered several hundreds, and had moved tents and chemical toilets onto the hill. This follows several attempts over the past week to move caravans and other more permanent structures there. The settlers, however, have been successful in establishing a tent colony under the protection of the military. Soldiers have prevented the owners of the land from going to the hill, and have protected the settlers' activity there.
In other areas of the West Bank:
18 dunums south of Jenin have recently been confiscated to build a re-deployment headquarters, similar to Eretz headquarters in Gaza, for the Israeli military and Civil Administration. Palestinian landowners objected to the confiscation, and plan on taking the case to court. The Civil Administration, however, has already begun excavating and bulldozing the site, damaging the area and essentially pre-empting the owners' right to appeal.
Witnesses reported the expansion of a Bezeq camp near Ar Rabe.
Israeli military and settlers from Aveny Chafetz enclosed several thousands of dunums of land with barbed wire. This land belongs to people from the Kufur Labad area, a village near Tulkarim in the north of the West Bank. This land has been targeted by this settlement since the early 1980's.
Land and Water Establishment deplores these latest actions, which come directly before the next important implementation of the re-deployment of the Israeli military. It is Land and Water Establishment's belief that Palestinian and Israeli reaction to these aggressive actions has been limited as a result of the promised re-deployment - aggressive Israeli activity can go unchallenged, and response to it limited, because of the promise of the removal of the Israeli military from populated Arab areas. In effect, the implementation of the peace process is being used to stifle legitimate challenges to continued settler aggression and land confiscation in the West Bank.
Therefore Land and Water calls on the international community, the media and all concerned parties to voice their opposition to the continuing violations in the West Bank, and on all Palestinians to continue their struggle to protect their lands.