On January 14, 2015, the Israeli Army bulldozers accompanied by Israeli Army forces and Israeli officers from the Israeli Civil Administration stationed in Khallet Al-Nahle village south of Bethlehem Governorate and started leveling a 30 dunums piece of land owned by a local resident form the village.
ARIJ field workers interviewed the resident Mohammad Yahia Ahmad ‘Ayeash, the owner of the targeted land, where he indicated that on the year 2004 he received an Israeli expropriation order for his land under the pretext of his lands classified as “State Land”.
Later on he submitted a petition to the Israeli court which issued a decision to hut the procedures of the aforementioned expropriation where he owned his land and have the proper registration and property papers( Tabu), while the Israeli occupation court still considering the case.
Mr. ‘Ayeash added that on June 2012, the Israeli occupation bulldozers for the Israeli Civil Administration razed his land and uprooted and seized +300 trees he cultivated in his land month before the incident. See photos below:
Photos 1-2: the land leveled captured by ARIJ field workers
An Illegal Outpost installed in Khallet Al-Nahle
The story of the new outpost started in late October 2013, when a herd of Israeli settlers stationed on a hilltop in Khallet Al-Nahle community southwest of Bethlehem Governorate and started to install a tent and water tank electricity lines and other infrastructure in an attempt to settle in the site. Few days later the Israeli Occupation Army dismantle the tent in the site and called the settlers to leave the area but the Israeli settlers reinstalled the tent and settled in the site and on January 20, 2014 the settlers installed a new additional caravan in the outpost.
It is worth mention that the site of the new outpost are very close to the houses Khallet Al-Nahle where the Israeli authorities claimed that they called on the Israeli settlers to evacuate the area since the new illegal outpost erected on a private Palestinian lands while the Israeli settlers did not comply to their authorities until the date of writing this report. See map 1:
Map 1: Khallet Al-Nahle with new illegal outpost
Khallet Al –Nahle is a Palestinian community located south of Bethlehem Governorate. It is bordered by Artas town from the north, Ath-Thabra village from the south, the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat as well as the Segregation Wall from the west, Khallet Al-Louza from the east.
Enormous Expansion in the Illegal Settlement of Efrat
On the other hand ARIJ field workers detected an enormous expansion in the illegal settlement of Efrat specifically on the nearby lands of Wad Rahal Palestinian community. The newly-built houses and dozens of under construction housing units located in wad Shahin valley which is part of Wad Rahal village. See photos below:
Photos 3-8 ARIJ field workers capture new construction in Efrat Settlement
Efrat is an illegal settlement and one of the largest settlement in Gush Etzion bloc west of Bethlehem Governorate. It was established in the year 1979 on 2,283 dunums expropriated form Palestinian residents form the villages of Al-Khader, Artas, Wad Rahal. It is populated by +10,000 illegal Israeli settler.
Prepared by:
The Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem
