Israeli settlers on Tuesday set up tents on Palestinian-owned land in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, seemingly marking the beginnings of a new illegal settlement outpost.
Official Palestinian Authority (PA)-owned Wafa news agency reported that settlers from the illegal Elon Moreh settlement set up tents in the Ras al-Ein area east of the Deir al-Hatab village, and fenced off the area.
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Israel has confiscated 659 dunams from the village for the establishment of the Elon Moreh settlement, which sits on the north-eastern side of the village, according to a 2014 report by the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ)
ARIJ also reported that settlers from Elon Moreh have cut off the village’s electricity supply by destroying the electricity infrastructure, and in 2009, settlers constructed a barbed wire fence around a water spring which served as one of the most important water sources in the village, despite an Israeli court ruling that stated the right of the Deir al-Hatab residents to the spring.
Pal farmers of Deir al Hatib have discovered sewage run-off from settlement Elon Moreh has killed their olive trees & other agriculture pic.twitter.com/CXplMXOoJF
— Rabbi 4 Human Rights (@rhreng) October 24, 2017
In addition to the hundreds of dunums of Deir al-Hatab’s land confiscated for Elon Moreh’s use, Israeli authorities have also confiscated 50 dunums of the village’s land for an Israeli “industrial zone,” 12 dunums for the establishment of an Israeli military base, and more unspecified amounts of land for the establishment of checkpoints around the village, and a settler bypass road, which links Elon Moreh with the Huwara checkpoint south of Nablus and the Itamar settlement.
Land from the village was also seized by Israeli settlers who used the land to establish two illegal settlement outposts to the east of the village on the hills that surround Elon Moreh.
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The aim of these outposts – which stand in contravention with both Israeli and international law – according to ARIJ, was to extend the Elon Moreh settlement “and in turn, control more Palestinian land.”
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
