Israel to Build Illegal Settlement, Waste Treatment Plant in West Bank Village

November 12, 2025 News
Illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. (Photo: ISM Palestine, via Wikimedia Commons)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

The decision “effectively means the displacement of local residents from their homes and farmland to make way for the planned plant.” Peace Now

Israel plans to establish an illegal settlement in the Palestinian village of Qalandiya, north of Jerusalem, while at the same time, dozens of Palestinian homes are to be demolished for the establishment of a waste treatment plant in the same village, according to reports.

According to Al-Jazeera, the Israeli Calcalist newspaper reported that the Brigade Committee for Planning and Construction in Jerusalem will hold a meeting next month to establish a settlement for ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) in the Atarot area and on the land of the old Jerusalem airport in the Qalandiya area north of Jerusalem and Ramallah.

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The newspaper reported that the Israeli authorities plan to build the illegal settlement on an area exceeding 1,263 dunams, on which about 9,000 residential units will be built for more than 30,000 settlers.

Since Israel’s military operation in Gaza began in October 2023, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved several illegal settlement projects aimed at tearing apart the West Bank and Judaizing occupied Jerusalem, the Al-Jazeera report noted.

Waste Treatment Facility

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Governorate said on Wednesday that Israeli authorities are planning to establish a waste treatment facility on Palestinian land in the village of Qalandiya, which threatens to displace dozens of families.

According to the Israeli Peace Now advocacy group, officials from the Israel Land Authority delivered eviction notices to residents of two apartment buildings in Qalandia two weeks ago.

“The orders require the families—dozens of Palestinians from several households—to vacate their homes and adjoining agricultural lands within 20 days,” Peace Now said in a statement on Wednesday.

Smotrich’s Intervention

In June 2024, the Israeli government tasked Eden, a municipal development company owned by the Jerusalem Municipality, with locating a site for a waste treatment and energy recovery facility for the city, the organization said.

“The company proposed a 130-dunam (about 32-acre) tract in Qalandiya—land that, while technically within Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, lies beyond the barrier,” it said.

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Much of the land is cultivated farmland and includes at least seven residential buildings housing dozens, possibly hundreds, of Palestinians, Peace Now noted.

It noted that in April 2025, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signed a notice under Section 19 of the Land Ordinance, “activating two old expropriations from 1970 and 1982 covering the same area.”

That notice, it said, now serves as the legal basis for the eviction orders delivered to residents.

Displacement from Homes, Farmland

A month later, the government formally decided to build the waste facility on the Qalandiya site proposed by Eden “and to reroute the separation barrier so that the area would fall on the Israeli side,” Peace Now stated.

This decision “effectively means the displacement of local residents from their homes and farmland to make way for the planned plant,” the organization added.

“The government’s appetite for annexation and dispossession knows no bounds. As if there were no other place in the Jerusalem area to build a waste facility besides the few remaining dunams left to Qalandiya’s residents after decades of expropriations and fences,” Peace Now stressed.

It added: “This would constitute a blatant violation of international law and basic moral principles to expel residents living under occupation for the sake of a plant serving the occupying power.”

Homes Demolished

In other developments, the Israeli occupation forces on Wednesday demolished Musa Badran’s Al-Maqdisi house in the Silwan neighborhood south of the occupied Jerusalem city under the pretext of building without a permit, Al-Jazeera reported.

According to the Jerusalem Governorate’s statistics, Israeli authorities demolished about 93 buildings until the end of last May, as international reports indicated that more than 623 houses and facilities were demolished in the West Bank since the beginning of this year, the report noted.

The Israeli occupation forces also demolished two homes in the village of Al-Wolja west of Bethlehem, as well as water wells in the village of Al-Fakhit in Safar Yatta south of Hebron (al Khalil).

Nour al-Shams Vigil

Also in Hebron, Palestinian sources reported that Israeli authorities seized 38 dunams of citizens’ land in the town of Beit Amr.

Israeli occupation forces also stormed towns in Ramallah today, while illegal settlers attacked Palestinian property and set fire to it in the towns of Deir Sharaf and Beit Lid east of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.

In the Nour al-Shams camp in Tulkarm, the residents held a vigil around the camp demanding to return to their homes. This comes as Israel’s military operation on camps in the northern West Bank, entered its tenth month.

(PC, AJA)

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