The rate of settlement in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, has increased during the era of the outgoing US President Donald Trump to double what it was during the rule of previous US administrations.
The National Bureau for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance of the Palestine Liberation Organization stated, in a report, that in the first three years of Trump's rule, the occupation authorities approved building an average of 7,000 housing units annually, which is nearly twice the average of settlement units in the three years preceding it in The era of President Barack Obama's administration, which has exceeded 3,600 housing units, aims to undermine the possibility of reaching a political agreement with the Palestinians by encouraging more construction in settlements.
According to the report, last year recorded the fastest pace of Israeli settlement activity in the Palestinian territories in 20 years, as it witnessed the approval of the Israeli authorities to build 15,100 settlement units.
Among the settlement plans in 2020 is the escalation of the occupation authorities ’demolition of Palestinian facilities and homes in the" C "area of the West Bank, which is under the full control of the occupation. The total of what the occupation authorities demolished in the same year reached 1,700 homes and establishments.
The report says that the year 2020 was not the worst for the Palestinians politically only after a number of Arab countries scrambled towards free normalization with the occupation state, but also demographically, explaining that the occupation authorities are planning to raise the number of settlers in the West Bank to about one million settlers.
Until the last week of last year, it was not better than the rest of the previous weeks and months in terms of settlement expansion, continued Judaization, and the increase in settler attacks. January 20, 2021 (when Trump will hand over power to Joe Biden), according to the report.
The Palestinian report indicated that the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, called for strengthening construction in settlements in the West Bank in response to the killing of an Israeli settlement near Jenin more than a week ago.
In Jerusalem, the local committee for planning and building in the occupation municipality has begun to work on the implementation of a project to link the settlements of southern Jerusalem with their north via the "green line" light train and impose a de-facto situation by the occupation force, which aims to Judaize all of Jerusalem.