Nablus

- from the west "Eli", from the south "Shilo", from the east "Shivut Rachel" and from the north "Ehya", these four settlements, in addition to 7 outposts, besiege the Palestinian town of Qaryut and seize most of its lands through a settlement expansion that began in the late 1970s and when stops yet.

The last of this expansion was the outpost of "Ma'aleh Keteret" (the outpost of the nucleus of a new settlement), which was recently built by settlers to serve as a link point between the huge settlements, and swallow up more of the village's lands, located south of the city of Nablus (in the northern West Bank).

On March 30, the 46th anniversary of Land Day, Bashar al-Qaryouti, an activist against settlement for 20 years, is watching the settlement growth on the lands of his village, which has so far targeted 17,000 dunams (a dunam = a thousand square meters) out of about 22,000 dunams, which are all Village lands.

The people actually control only 366 dunums, which is the structural plan of the village. The rest of the land is classified by the occupation as “security influence” or “dangerous” areas.

Since the establishment of these settlements, 14,000 dunams have been confiscated, and in the last two years it has reached 17,000, and "Eli", which was called the settlement of the seven hills, has become the "nine hills."

Al-Qaryouti displays a map showing the settlements perched on the lands of his village south of Nablus (Al-Jazeera)

Swallow and revenge

For a few minutes, we took the activist al-Qaryouti in his car to understand the danger facing his village, which is inhabited by about 3,000 people. The occupation did not leave them an outlet.

Even its main road was closed 20 years ago, turning the population into a secondary road through which they suffer the hardship of traveling tens of kilometers at a double cost.

Qaryouti, who was arrested by the occupation 6 times during his confrontation with settlers, says that the people of Qaryut organized 116 popular marches to open the road, and each time the occupation suppressed them and increased its closure with earth and stone mounds.

The four settlements surrounding the village are inhabited by about 15,000 settlers, and the occupation approved the construction of more than 1,120 new settlement units in them this year, while notifying 29 Palestinian homes of demolition and halting construction.

And not only construction, water is also prevented by the occupation by placing its hand on 3 out of 5 springs belonging to Qaryout, while two springs have turned into the scene of repeated incursions by settlers to perform religious rituals, as well as night attacks that escalated recently and aimed at destroying people’s vehicles and writing slogans on the walls of their homes such as “Until The day of revenge will come.

Statistics indicate that the annual population growth rate in the settlements in the West Bank reached 3.3% during 2021, while it was 2.6% in 2020, which is higher than in Israel itself.


The earth and what is on it

Since 2011, the number of settlers has increased by 43%, at a rate of 3.7% annually.

Through 754 thousand settlers spread in 172 settlements and 140 outposts in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the occupation wants to implement its huge settlement project in 3 schemes.

The first plan provides for the annexation of the western part adjacent to the Green Line (separating the lands occupied in 1967 from those confiscated by Israel in the Nakba in 1948), the annexation of the eastern part (the Jordan Valley) on the borders of Jordan, the confinement of the Palestinian presence in the center of the West Bank and the annexation of all of Jerusalem.

The occupation seeks to implement this by dividing the West Bank into major cantons in its north, center and south, with the complete isolation of the city of Jericho with the Jordan Valley, and the separation of each city through huge settlement blocs (such as Ariel, Shiloh and Eli in the north and Gush Etzion in the south), and these are linked to each other with outposts and large road networks.

The partition is then divided across more than 200 cantons, separated by 750 military barriers, to prevent any political, economic and social communication, and thus prevent the establishment of any economic and social unity of the Palestinians within the framework of a single state.

Israel controls 78% of historical Palestine (it occupied it separately after the Nakba of 1948 and the 1967 war), while the West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute 22% of historical Palestine (Gaza is 360 square kilometers, and the West Bank is about 6,500 km) and includes Jerusalem and parts of the Dead Sea.

Israeli settlements constitute 9.6% of the West Bank, while settlement bypass roads are estimated at 3%, in addition to 3% being camps for the occupation army. It is considered a strategic reserve for the expansion of the settlement later.

In Qaryut, settlers turn the water sources that feed the village into religious shrines in preparation for their confiscation (Al-Jazeera)

water and demography

Even the demographic factor, which tends in favor of the Palestinians (3 million people in the West Bank), is being dismantled through the settlements, separating the West Bank from Gaza (about two million Palestinians), preventing the establishment of a political and geographical unity between them, restricting the Palestinians to small gatherings, and preventing them from building in Area C that It constitutes 62% of the area of ​​the West Bank.

The Palestinian Jordan Valley constitutes 28% of the West Bank, of which Israel controls 88% by classifying it as “state land, military training areas, and nature reserves,” and it constantly seeks to displace its residents.

The occupation also establishes camps for its army and more than 33 settlements in the Jordan Valley, inhabited by about 12,000 settlers, while the number of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley is more than 75,000.

Israel confiscates 83% of the Palestinian groundwater in the West Bank, which is estimated at about 800 million cubic meters annually, and the settler consumes 6 times the Palestinian of water, which prevents any agricultural and economic development for the Palestinians.


Neither a country nor half of it

All of this leads - according to the former head of the Palestinian Authority's Resistance to the Wall and Settlement Commission, Walid Assaf - to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, as Israel wants to annex Jerusalem completely and isolate the West Bank through cantons surrounded by settlements, "and with it the possibility of establishing an independent state in favor of self-rule for multiple cantons."

Assaf told Al Jazeera Net that the chances of establishing a Palestinian state, according to what is known as the two-state solution, "are dwindling to the point of nothingness, in light of the current balance of power."

He asserts that Israel wants a "Jewish state" through which it strangles the Palestinians, and seizes the largest area of ​​their lands (the annexation plan and the deal of the century), to force them to leave voluntarily.

This is confirmed by the expert on maps and settlements, Khalil Al-Tafkaji, by saying that before 1948 the Palestinians owned 96% of the land of historic Palestine, and now their ownership does not exceed 4% after the Jews took control of all the lands.

Al-Tafkaji told Al-Jazeera Net, "We have nothing left of Land Day except his name," and that what awaits the Palestinians is neither a state nor self-rule, nor anything less. "The state does not exist, and the occupation controls 60% of the West Bank, which is witnessing an increase in settlement."