Every day, Palestinians are shocked with a new Israeli colonization plan aimed to rip their lands apart and add to their suffering. The Israelis are planning to construct a new railway network to connect the Israeli colonies spreading all around the West Bank; a project that will also include security fences and roads, watch towers, train station, and maintenance and repair lots. More than 100,000 dunums of Palestinian lands are threatened of confiscation as a result.
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The railway will spread like a web all around the West Bank, further disconnecting Palestinian localities. The purpose of the project is connecting the Illegal Israeli colonies spreading all around the West Bank as well as connecting them with cities in the so-called ‘Israeli State’.
The railway will be around 456 km long, devouring more than 30,000 dunums and isolate further 70,000 which will be used as security buffer zones on both sides of the route. 100,000 dunums will be added to the tally of lands used to serve Israeli colonization plan which have already consumed around 2.2 km2.
Israeli gains:
- A fast track connecting Israeli colonies spreading all around the West Bank as well as connecting those colonies with the cities in the so-called ‘Israeli State’. Provide spaces that can be used for vertical expansion which will compliment the purpose of the Segregation Wall. Ripping the Palestinian communities apart and rendering establishing a Palestinian State impossible which is one of the main objectives of Zionism.
As for the Palestinians, this forms a severe violation of their right to residency and ownership; it also hinders their development and limits the possibility for urban and economic expansions.
The spider network formed of the railway and the segregation wall will turn the Palestinian communities into disconnected ‘ghettos’. Surely, the Israelis arrogantly claimed that they will allow the Palestinians to use the railway system; however, it is clear that this will not be possible due to the fact that the Palestinians are prohibited from entering the trains’ destinations.
It is an Israeli attempt to gain international support, and probably Palestinian as well, to a project that will hammer one last nail in the ‘peace process’ casket. Similar to many previous projects; as soon as this one is finished, the Israeli discriminative policy will surface again and usage will be monopolized to Israelis only.
We, at the Land Research Center view the project as catastrophic to the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. We hereby demand complete rejection of such a plan on the Arab and Islamic world level and they are obliged to stop such a plan for Happening.
