Israeli occupation forces ordered today the takeover of a Palestinian-owned land plot in the village of al-Walaja, northwest of Bethlehem city in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
#Israeli Forces Uproot 350 #Olive Trees, Displace Residents near #Jericho https://t.co/BxJiOVba8h via @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/p3rqVr4Iyn
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 31, 2020
Ibrahim Awadallah, a local activist, told WAFA that an Israeli occupation army force broke into the village and handed a notification ordering takeover of a plot belonging to the heirs of two local Palestinian citizens, under the pretext that the plot was an “absentee’s property”.
Awadallah said the notification orders the heirs of the landowners to leave the property no later than 45 days from today.
He added that the current owners of the plot, which is mainly planted with olives, have proper paperwork proving their ownership of by means of inheritance.
‘What Binds Us Together’: On What It Means to Support #Indigenous #Liberation https://t.co/nk4PHWeXSj via @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/NN6qZ5rwVt
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 31, 2020
According to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the Israeli Absentees’ Property Law has been a main legal instrument used by Israel to take possession of the land belonging to the internal and external Palestinian refugees, as well as Muslim Waqf properties.
Under this law, Palestinian refugees and the internally displaced are regarded as “present absentees”, a designation that authorizes the unfair confiscation of their land.
(WAFA, PC, Social Media)
