The latest confiscation orders to seal off a Jewish-only settler road will isolate thousands of dunums of Palestinian-owned land and ensure the local villages are isolated from each other to make space for another settlement finger on Palestinian land.
***image4***The Occupation forces gave confiscation orders to two villages, Mazraâa el Kibliyyeh and Abu Shukheidim. The orders will take 145 dunums (approximately 38 acres). An additional 300 m2 of land are confiscated from Deir Ammar and Ras Karkar, northwest Ramallah city. According to the maps that accompanied the Occupationâs orders, the confiscated land will be used to enlarge the perimeter next to the Jewish-only road that runs past the Palestinian village Beitillu and along al Janiye and Ras Karkar. The road connects the illegal settlements of Halamish, Nahlaâil, Talmon and Dolev.
The Occupation aims to create a buffer zone along the settler road by building a wall or razor wire constructions. They will confiscate all the lands along the sides of the road and also annex land for the expansion of the settlements.
This road has been closed to Palestinians since the beginning of the Intifada. Palestinians are even forbidden from crossing it, thus barring the farmers from reaching their land. According to the mayor of the combined municipality of Mazraâa al Kibliyyeh and Deir Ammar this order is simply part of the Zionist policy to steal the Palestinian land: âFor the farmers, this order means that the occupation will isolate 2000 dunums from al Mazraâa al Kibliyyeh. By confiscating the land, they steal the livelihoods from the people.â The isolated land is full of olive groves; however, the farmers have not been allowed to cultivate and harvest these lands in over five years.