On January 5, the occupation municipality in Jerusalem approved 5 plans to build 3,557 new settlement units, south of the city towards Bethlehem, and on the edge of the French Hill in the heart of Jerusalem. This will lead to the penetration and dispersal of Palestinian villages.
Occupied Jerusalem- The occupied city of Jerusalem is entering a new phase of Israeli settlement; It will completely separate it from the Bethlehem Governorate in the south, encircle Palestinian villages and neighborhoods such as Sur Baher and Beit Safafa, penetrate them and then disperse them.
On January 5th, the so-called “Local Planning and Building Committee” in the occupation municipality in Jerusalem approved 5 plans to build 3,557 new settlement units, one of which is between the two settlements of “Harhoma” built on the lands of Mount Abu Ghneim in the village of Sur Baher, and “Givat Hamatos” On the lands of Khirbet Tabalia in the village of Beit Safafa (south of Jerusalem), and the second on the edge of the French Hill towards Mount Scopus in the heart of the city.
Religious dimension and fast pace
The occupation seeks to give a religious character to its first settlement project, which was called the “lower channel”, in reference to the Roman aqueduct that used to transport water from the springs of the Palestinian village of Artas (Birk Solomon) near Bethlehem to the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish account claims that the aqueduct carried water “to the Temple Mount” in the first century BC.
The lower canal project will include 1,465 housing units on an area of 186 dunums (a dunam is equivalent to one thousand square meters), and is bordered to the north and east by “Mar Elias Church” and the monastery of the Greek Orthodox Church located on the road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
It is expected that the project plan will be published for public review on the 17th of this month, and then approved by the so-called “District Committee” to begin its implementation and be completed within two years, within a fast pace.
Al-Tafkaji: The new plan falls within a project set by former Housing Minister Ariel Sharon to remove the Green Line (Al-Jazeera)blow up the green line
According to the United Nations, the Green Line is the line separating the territories occupied by Israel in 1948 and the other occupied in 1967, and it was also known as the armistice line between Jordan and Israel after the Nakba, and the term “no man’s land” emerged from which this line passes, and any Israeli settlements Outside it is illegal under international law.
Here lies one of the problems of the “lower channel” scheme, which will be the first new Jewish neighborhood outside the Green Line after the settlement of “Harhoma” on Jabal Abu Ghneim, which was built in the late 1990s on the lands of the village of Sur Baher, during the Oslo Accords, and caused a political uproar at the international level.
Map and settlement expert Khalil Tafakji confirms to Al Jazeera Net that 50% of this scheme is located outside the Green Line, and falls within the “Seven Stars” project proposed by the former Israeli Minister of Housing, Ariel Sharon, in 1990, to permanently remove the line, and return to before the fourth of the June 1967.
Siege of Jerusalem’s neighborhoods
Tafakji explains that the main objective of this plan is to encircle Palestinian neighborhoods with settlements, then penetrate and disperse them. If we take the village of Sur Baher and its neighbor Umm Tuba as an example, the scheme will encircle them from the south completely.
Before that, it besieged the “Tal Piot” settlement north of Tire Baher, and from the east it was besieged by the “American Ring” Street, as well as a plan that will penetrate its heart with 6 settlement outposts.
The “lower channel” plan will also cut the geographical connection between the villages of Tire Baher and Beit Safafa, south of Jerusalem, in addition to another scheme to build a settlement neighborhood called “Givat Hashaked” on an area of 38 dunums of Beit Safafa lands with 473 settlement units, and near it the occupation approved the construction of 3 Towers of 130 housing units in the “Har Gilo” settlement built on the lands of Al Walaja village and Beit Jala.
The Israeli settlement in Jabal Abu Ghneim (they call it Har Homa settlement) south of Jerusalem (the site of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem)southern settlement belt
Since its occupation in the 1967 war, the occupation has established settlements on the lands of Palestinian villages south of Jerusalem, the most prominent of which are from east to west: “Armon Hanatziv” settlement on the lands of Jabal Mukaber, Har Homa, Ramat Rachel, Givat Hamatos, and Har Jello.
The new plan will be located south of the “Ramat Rachel” settlement in the area between “Harhoma” and “Givat Hamatos”, thus forming a continuous settlement belt from the southeast to the southwest of the city, in addition to completing it with a future plan to build the settlement of “Givat Yael” on the lands of the village of Walaja. By 5,000 housing units.
demographic discount
The expert believes that the occupation seeks to resolve the demographic factor in Jerusalem during 2022, as it was not satisfied with confiscating the spatial space and evacuating its residents, but also worked on building settlement units above it and housing its settlers inside, as well as adopting the method of vertical expansion by building towers instead of horizontal.
At a time when the occupation is building thousands of units on the confiscated lands of Jerusalemites, it refuses to give them building permits in their city, and demolishes their facilities on a daily basis. at least.
Settlement expert Jamal Jumaa says that these plans are not new and were developed after the 1993 Oslo Agreement (Al-Jazeera)The year of the settlement incursion
Coinciding with the settlement siege in southern Jerusalem, the expert on settlement affairs, Jamal Jumaa, says that the occupation is seeking to separate the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods from the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate, through the “Atarot” scheme to house 50,000 settlers on the land of Jerusalem International Airport in the village of Qalandia, between Jerusalem and Ramallah .
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Gomaa recalled the “E1” project, which aims to link Jerusalem with a number of West Bank settlements located east of it, such as “Ma’ale Adumim”, and the two light rail projects and the American Street that connect the eastern and western settlements to the city of Jerusalem.
In addition to an Israeli road that passes under the Qalandia checkpoint in the north and leads to the isolation of Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings and its annexation as a large settlement complex and making it the capital of Israel.
According to Gomaa, these plans are not new. Rather, they were developed after the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Agreement in 1993, for a long-term strategic goal. It is to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
He concludes, “The Oslo Accord is the umbrella for everything that is happening, as well as overt Arab normalization. Nobody cares, but I also hold the Palestinians responsible. When they ignited my Al-Aqsa Intifada, they moved the world and drew its attention.”
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/FUGE4ZZSVFD73BBBRVG3DQ43FU.jpg)
