After the occupation began to bring in Ukrainian and Russian Jews, this is what Palestinian citizens did to confront plans to settle them on their land

Nablus

- only looking at his land from afar, but to see it closely, this is forbidden, and to tread on it is absolutely impossible. Thus, the Palestinian citizen Dr. Mustafa Al-Haj Ali (70 years old) became a stranger to the land of his fathers and grandfathers after it became a settlement for every foreigner without its owner , even if he was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine or elsewhere.

More recently, and since the outbreak of the Russian war on Ukraine about a month ago, the Israeli government has had no concern other than bringing Jews from both countries and resettling them in the occupying country at the expense of the Palestinians and their land. So far, more than 3,500 Jewish immigrants have arrived from there.

As for what is planned, according to Ayelet Shaked, the Israeli Minister of the Interior, to prepare to receive 100,000 Ukrainian and Russian Jews out of the 800,000 living in the two countries, according to the “Law of Return” (the Jewish immigration law that allows receiving only Jews).

It is noteworthy that despite receiving the bulk of the immigrants in Israeli hotels, some families were transferred to settlements in the West Bank, such as the settlements of "Yitzhar" and "Rafafa".

The head of the settlement council in the northern West Bank, Yossi Dagan, announced - on his Facebook page - that "these days are preparing for a new wave of settlements in the West Bank, a family in the settlement of Refava and 3 families that were absorbed in Yitzhar."

Citizen Mustafa Al-Haj Ali reviews his identification papers in the settlement of Yitzhar (Al-Jazeera)

Striving to establish the right

Yitzhar squatted on the land of Hajj Ali and the citizens of his town of Hawara near the city of Nablus (in the northern West Bank) and 5 other surrounding villages, and confiscated thousands of dunams (dunam = one thousand square metres), of which more than 20 dunams belong to the family of Haj Ali, and he never visited them. Since the settlement was established on his land in the early eighties of the last century.

Like other residents of the village, Haji Ali heard the news that Ukrainian Jews had been brought to the settlement of Yitzhar, so he could not control himself and took the bag of documents proving his ownership of his land and went to the municipal council - where Al Jazeera Net met him - to confirm his right and search for a way that would enable him and others to recover his land located within the boundaries of the settlement.

Since his return in 1980 to the village of Hawara after completing his postgraduate studies in the United States of America, Hajj Ali has taken upon himself the task of canonizing (fixing) his family's lands in official institutions and in the three eras "Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian", and he succeeded in many, and some of them remain in need of completion.

Al-Hajj Ali - to Al-Jazeera Net - says that his goal with this step is to "establish their right to the land," and he told his children and grandchildren about this to continue their defense of it, and confirms that he is following up the file legally and through international courts, despite his recognition of the unfairness of the world, "but we have no choice under the shadow of the occupation's suppression." And settlers are ours during our peaceful protests.”

Not only the new immigrants, but also "all the settlers and the entire occupying state, they are not welcome and their presence is rejected," adds Hajj Ali.

Citizens in Hawara and villages south of Nablus refuse to establish Israeli settlements on their lands (Al-Jazeera)

Settlements... have no borders

From Hawara village alone, Yitzhar controls about 10,000 dunams, according to the Municipal Council, which gave us an aerial photo showing the settlement tide, the last of which was on the “security cordon” street that the occupation built around the settlement to annex more land.

Al-Hajj Ali - while pointing to his land on an aerial photo taken of the settlement of "Yitzhar" - says that the occupation does not set limits for his settlements in order to continue to Judaize the land.

The "Law of Return" approved by the Israeli Knesset after the establishment of Israel stipulates "the right of world Jewry to immigrate and settle in Israel," before it was amended in 1970 to include "people of Jewish origin and their spouses."

Like "Yitzhar", the "Rafafa" settlement near the city of Salfit (in the northern West Bank) has received a Ukrainian Jewish family so far, while the family of Adnan Abu Nasser, 61, from Deir Istiya village, has been deprived of its land on which the settlement has been sitting for more than three decades. Thousands of acres are confiscated.

Abu Nasser says - to Al-Jazeera Net - that "for security reasons and for the purposes of demographic and population expansion", the occupation places its hand on his land, which is estimated at more than 20 dunams, and on 3 dunams of it, the occupation builds settlement facilities.

At the top of the mountain, the settlement of “Yitzhar” appears and how the citizens’ lands and homes are expanding in the village of Hawara and the neighboring villages (Al-Jazeera)

The war to intensify settlement

And the citizen Abu Nasser is not satisfied with saying that the expansion and settlement expansion in “Rafafa” has not stopped since its establishment, despite the small number of its residents (less than 2500 settlers), but he asserts that the Russian-Ukrainian war “was fabricated to intensify settlements.”

Dozens of settlement units were built in Refava, and left empty to be ready for immigration.

Abu Nasser refuses to settle Jewish immigrants on his land, whoever they are, and says in his colloquial language: “Jews of Ukraine, Poland, their country are first in them, they should return to it.” He asserts that - since the establishment of the settlement - he has left no way in his legal follow-up and sue the occupation in the courts to recover his land.

Shortly after the outbreak of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett packed his bags and flew to Russia, to secure the transportation of Jewish immigrants to Israel.

And the initial talk - according to the director of maps at the Arab Studies Association in Jerusalem Khalil Al-Tafkaji - is about the reception of 16 thousand Ukrainian Jews, up to 100 thousand.

He tells Al Jazeera Net that most of them are now in the transit phase and spread within Israeli cities, but their fate will undoubtedly be for the West Bank settlements, since "a large part of its settlement units is empty and will be easily mobilized."

Citizen Mustafa Al-Haj Ali points towards his land, as it appears in an aerial photograph taken over the settlement of Yitzhar (Al-Jazeera)

Why Ukrainian Jews?

Through this recruitment of Ukrainian Jews, Israel wants to implement its project and settling "one million settlers" in the West Bank, which was planned by the Jewish Agency in 1979. About 750,000 settlers are now occupying the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The relationship of nationalism - says Tafakji - between new and former immigrants from Russia and Ukraine who are present in Israel facilitates the process of integration into Israeli society, as the Russian language is the second after Hebrew in Israel, in addition to the educated people with higher degrees.

And in the early nineties of the last century, during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Israel had received one million Russian Jewish immigrants, and among them are now those who occupy important positions in the occupying state, such as Avigdor Lieberman.

Tafakji does not see Israel's reception of immigrants as "sympathizing with them in front of the world" and that this is "a scattering of ashes in the eyes", because Israel works according to its interest in the war that requires the protection of the Jews.