Ramallah -

The Israeli occupation army in the West Bank is recently implementing plans for a network of roads, bridges, tunnels and infrastructure, which would consolidate the presence of its forces and strengthen the settlers, at the expense of the Palestinians and their lands in the West Bank.

The settlement road projects are currently distributed over the lands of several Palestinian governorates, including Hebron and Bethlehem in the south of the West Bank, and Nablus and Qalqilya in the north.

The projects are implemented on private Palestinian land confiscated by the Civil Administration, the arm of the Israeli army in the 1967 occupied territories, by military orders.

Israeli mechanisms are working to create a section of a street north of Hebron in the West Bank (Al-Jazeera)

Possession by military decision

Ibrahim Abu Hashem, the official in charge of research and documentation at the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Affairs Authority, says that the military confiscation order usually specifies the area of ​​the targeted lands and the purpose of the confiscation, and is accompanied by a map.

According to the Palestinian official - who spoke to Al Jazeera Net - the owners of the lands threatened with confiscation are asked to object - within a specified period - to the occupation, but they do not receive a result when they object.

The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission monitored - in a report obtained by Al Jazeera Net - 10 expropriation decisions issued in 2019, to confiscate about 877 dunams (a dunam = one thousand square metres), most of which are now designated for the construction of streets, intersections and bridges.

According to the commission - affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization - "plots of land are confiscated with the aim of constructing bypass roads to serve the colonists (settlers) in the first place."

It refers to the allocation of $220 million for the road map that is being implemented in the West Bank, and for the construction and installation of communication towers and lighting for bypass streets (designated for the occupation forces and settlers).

And “acquisition” - according to the commission - is a decision issued by the Israeli military commander, which stipulates the expropriation of land from its original Palestinian owner to the military commander, and it is transferred to “state” property, i.e. the occupying power.

Khalil Al-Tafkaji: The Israeli road plan in the West Bank is fragmenting Palestinian communities (Al-Jazeera)

Two countries in a country

According to land and settlement expert Khalil Al-Tafkaji, the projects being implemented are part of a plan announced in 1983, according to an Israeli military order on roads and bearing the number "50".

Al-Tafkaji explains - to Al-Jazeera Net - that "the scheme aims to build longitudinal roads from the north of the West Bank to its south, and from west to east," and that what is currently happening in the areas of Beit Ummar in Hebron, Hawara in Nablus, and Street No. "9" in the northern West Bank, is " Part of the practical application of this scheme."

Al-Tafakji says that the method of planning the streets aims to "fragment the West Bank and crowd the Palestinian communities."

Contrary to the Israeli narrative that the streets serve Palestinians and settlers alike, Al-Tafkaji says that "Israel designed the streets so that they can be closed to Palestinians at any moment, as happened after the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000."

According to the Palestinian expert, Israel seeks to implement "the two-state solution in one state: the state of the geographically continuous colonies, and the Palestinian state connected to bridges and tunnels."

He points out that the actual implementation of the street plans began with the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993, and the redeployment of the Israeli army in some Palestinian cities.


elemental layout

For its part, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, B'Tselem, says that Israeli planning in the West Bank aims to prevent Palestinian development and the theft of Palestinian lands.

Karim Jubran, the center's field research officer, cites the street symbolized by Israel with the number "443", which connects Jerusalem and settlements in the West Bank with the occupied interior in 1947 (Israel).

"This street was built on Palestinian lands that were confiscated, and it was announced that it serves everyone, but after its completion it was closed to the Palestinians and is currently used by the Israelis," said Gibran.

And he added - in his speech to Al Jazeera Net - "All the bypass streets are mainly aimed at serving the Israeli settlement expansion project inside the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967."

Gibran denies that the aim of the streets is to improve the lives of Palestinians, as the occupation authorities say, and "even if they use them partially, they are the most affected by them because they are built at the expense of their confiscated lands."

Gibran continues that the streets and intersections - which are currently being constructed - "isolate the Palestinian communities and turn them into cantons (isolators)."

In a report published in 2017, B'Tselem spoke of a "political plan that aims to enable Israel to harness the maximum possible area of ​​West Bank land for its needs. In return, it is doing everything in its power to reduce the resources of the land allocated to serve the needs of the Palestinians."

A previous Israeli announcement of a street route that will be built on the lands of the towns of Beit Ummar and Al-Aroub, north of Hebron in the West Bank (Al-Jazeera)

Target Area C.

Israeli projects are implemented in areas classified as “C”, according to the annexes of the Oslo Accords signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1995, which are under full Israeli control. These areas constitute about 61% of the West Bank’s lands.

According to the publications of the Civil Administration Coordinator (which is affiliated with the Israeli government), the cost of the road being constructed north of Hebron is currently $77 million, and it extends from the “Etzion” junction (lands south of Bethlehem) to the town of Halhul (north of Hebron).

The street is built at the expense of Palestinian lands, and part of it penetrates the lands of the Al-Arroub Agricultural College (Palestinian government), but it bypasses the towns of Beit Ummar and Halhul to the east.

Work is underway to build a section of Street 60 north of Hebron (Al-Jazeera)

Banned for Palestinians

According to data published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in 2020, the Israeli checkpoints divided the West Bank into more than 100 cantons (areas isolated from each other).

He stated that among the checkpoints are about 165 iron gates at the entrances to cities and villages, and 600 military checkpoints or earth mounds, which facilitate the isolation and separation of Palestinian communities from each other.

According to the same source, the length of the streets - which Palestinians are forbidden to use and which Israel allocates for its army and settlers - is approximately 40 kilometers, including 7 kilometers inside the city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank.

By the end of 2019, the number of Israeli settlement outposts and military bases in the West Bank reached 461, including 151 settlements, 26 inhabited outposts (not officially recognized by Israel), and 140 uninhabited outposts, while the number of settlers reached about 688,000, according to the Palestinian Authority. .