Ariel Sharon's pledge no to renew andor encourage colonial activity on the Palestinian occupied lands was just a media fa'ade under which he hid his true colonial intentions. As it was not long after his inauguration as Israel's fifth Prime Minister in so many years that new colonial activity in the Jenin district started taking place, especially in the town of Ya'abad.
The Colonial Activity:
Eyewitnesses told the Land Research Center that settlers from the settlement of Mevo Dotan (pop. 350 Israeli settlers) used bulldozers to occupy a Palestinian hill and to install mobile caravan atop of it. This colonial incident took place on the 10th of March
2001 as a number of Mevo Dotan settlers occupied a Palestinian hill, called Jabal Al Aqra'a, located 500 meters to the wets of the settlement. The settlers bulldozed the land, uprooted trees, built a road connecting between the settlement and the hill, in addition to setting up water, electricity, and phone line. Moreover, they have moved atop the hill 6 caravans after they bulldozed and besieged about 100 dunums as a prelude to establishing new and permanent colonial units in the location. It is worth mentioning that the bulldozed lands belonged to the family of Mr. Mohammad Mostafa Abu Shamlah and his brothers.
This act of aggression has a number of dangerous ramifications that includes the following:
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The fact that the new location is about 500 meters away from the original settlement means that the lands separating between the two locations are going to be expropriated under the pretext of providing security for the settlers. These 500 meters are, thus, considered to be reserve land for future settlement expansion.
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Jabal Al Aqra'a hill is located close to Palestinian houses which will definitely lead to continuous friction between the inhabitants of these houses and the settlers. Collective punishments are, thus, expected to be imposed more often upon the people of Ya'abad.
A History of Colonization in Ya'bad:
The town of Ya'abad is located 18 kilometers to the west of Jenin. 20 thousand Palestinians inhabit the town most of whom work in the agricultural sector in Ya'abad's famous agricultural plain. The fact that most of the land's in Ya'abad is agricultural made it hard for Israeli occupation authorities to confiscate the land under the pretext that it is State Land or under the pretext that the land could be used for military practice as it lacks any strategic hills. Yet, despite that fact, Israeli occupation forces confiscated about 50 dunums in the southern tip of the town back in 1981 and established upon it the settlement of Mevo Dotan by building 100 housing units to house the incoming Israeli settlers. The expansion of the settlement continued unabated during the 80's and 90's as the settlers managed to confiscate an additional 800 dunums most of which was seized during Sharon's tenure as Benjamin Netanyahu's minister of the basic infrastructure.
In addition to the Mevo Dotan settlement, another settlement was established in the year 1981. This settlement is called Shakeed (pop. 440 Israeli settlers) and it was established to the north of Ya'abad atop 389.5 expropriated dunums. Finally, another settlement, called Al Rihan, was established shortly after the signing of the Declaration Of Principles (DoP) back in 1993. This settlement (pop. 90 Israeli settlers) was established atop 294 dunums and it caused a 2000-dunum pollution after it opened a query within its borders. Further damage to Palestinian land took place as a result of the deliberate Israeli action of dumping the sewage of these three settlements into it.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
