Israeli occupation forces on Sunday bulldozed 50 dunums of Palestinian private-owned land outside the town of Dura, near the city of Hebron (Al-Khalil), the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Waleed Abu Sharar, one of the owners of the land, told WAFA that Israeli authorities decided to bulldoze the land to provide more space for Jewish settlement expansion in the area.
Israeli occupation forces embarked today on bulldozing 50 dunums of #Palestinian private-owned land outside the town of Dura, southwest of #Hebron, to provide more space for colonial #Israeli settlement expansion in the area, according to local sources. pic.twitter.com/KyXQmA1fpS
— Palestinian Return Centre (@prclondon) January 23, 2022
Abu Sharar added that Jewish settlers had previously attempted to take control of Palestinian private-owned land in the area.
According to Israeli rights group B’Tselem, Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Israeli occupiers bulldoze privately-owned & cultivated Palestinian land in Dura town south of al-Khalil, destroying over 12,000 acres of crops https://t.co/OmLbtM3u9w
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) January 23, 2022
The principal tool used to take control of land is to declare it “state land.” Other methods employed by Israel to take control of land include seizure for military needs, declaration of land as “abandoned assets,” and the expropriation of land for public needs.
(WAFA, PC, Social Media)
