Israel seizes more Palestinian land

[Moses]

Where were the television cameras?

Soldiers confiscate more land in several West Bank areas
IMEMC & Agencies - Saturday, 04 February 2006, 16:27
  


Israeli officials approved the confiscation of 279 Dunums of Hij'ja, Kafer Laqif and 'Azoun villages in the Qalqilia area Saturday for 'security reasons', as well as confiscations in Salfit and Dier Istiya for 'wall construction'.

The army also intends to annex lands which belongs to residents of Dier Istia, near the West Bank city of Salfit for Wall construction.

The residents appealed against the annexation orders through the popular Committee to Resist the Wall.

Committee Coordinator, Rafiq Mara'abah said, on Saturday, that the residents have contacted several lawyers, who started the legal proceedings.

Citizens in the Hadedeyah neighborhood in Baqa Village,s east of Tubas, are also being forced from their homes, which now constitute what Israeli forces are calling a 'closed military zone'.

Lawyers of the Committee have pledged to help landowners fight the illegal (by international law) confiscations of their land.

[Moses]

High Court: State must explain why it won't move separation fence in Bil'in
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent



Palestinians clashing with IDF troops during a protest against the separation fence in Bil'in last month. (Reuters)




The High Court of Justice on Thursday ordered the state prosecutor to explain why Israel won't alter the route of the separation fence where it passes over land belonging to the West Bank Palestinian village of Bil'in.
The state was given three weeks to explain why the fence can't be moved west, toward the Upper Modi'in settlement, so that it won't pass over Bil'in agricultural lands.

The High Court issued the preliminary injunction at the request of Bil'in residents, who are petitioning the court to order the state to alter the fence route in the area.

On Wednesday, lawyer Michael Sfard told the court the current fence route was not determined by security considerations, as the state maintains. Sfard said the fence route was designed to allow the eastward expansion of Upper Modi'in.

He also said the fence route allows the building of the new Matityahu East neighborhood. As was first published in Haaretz, illegal construction, without any building permits or legal building plan, is currently underway on the neighborhood.

"We had thought that the fence administration was building a fence," Sfard said. "But now it is clear that the fence administration is building new illegal neighborhoods in settlements."

The fence separates the village of Bil'in from a large portion of its agricultural lands.

The Matityahu East neighborhood has 750 housing units and another 2,000 are planned. The lands on which the neighborhood is being constructed belong to Bil'in residents. Portions of the land were obtained using documents suspected to have been forged.