Plan to establish 19 new illegal settlements in West Bank underway as Netanyahu approves reconstruction in Rafah
A view of Israeli settlements in West Bank. PHOTO: REUTERS
Israeli occupiers began moving Sunday into the newly established illegal settlement of Emek Dotan, built on Palestinian land in the town of Arraba, west of Jenin in the northern West Bank, according to Israeli media.
Channel 7 reported that trucks carrying equipment arrived at the site and that the first occupier families from the settlement’s founding group moved into buildings erected there.
The move comes ahead of an official inauguration ceremony scheduled for Sunday set to be attended by Israeli Cabinet ministers, Knesset members, and other public figures, according to the report.
Expected attendees include Education Minister Yoav Kisch, Security Cabinet Minister Zeev Elkin, Knesset members Keti Shitrit, Boaz Bismuth, and Nissim Vaturi, and Zeev Hever, secretary-general of the Amana settlement organisation.
Rabbi Haim Baruch, head of the Yeshivat Beror Hayil institutions in Lod and Tiberias, is also expected to attend. Graduates of his religious school are among the illegal settlement’s first residents, Channel 7 reported.
The illegal settlement was established as part of a broader plan led by the Samaria Regional Council to establish 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, all of them illegal.
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“This is the fifth settlement established by the Samaria Regional Council in less than a year,” the channel said.
According to daily Israel Hayom, Emek Dotan is the first illegal settlement in the northern West Bank to be established on a site where no settlement existed before Israel’s 2005 disengagement plan.
Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The United Nations and most of the international community consider Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory illegal under international law and view their expansion as an obstacle to a two-state solution.
Palestinians consider the illegal settlement expansion part of a broader policy of land seizure and territorial fragmentation in the occupied West Bank.
UN Security Council Resolution 2334, issued in 2016, states that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of international law.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice said in an advisory opinion that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end as soon as possible.
Netanyahu ‘quietly’ approves reconstruction in Gaza’s Rafah: Israeli media
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz “quietly” approved the reconstruction of an area under army control in eastern Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media on Sunday.
Without a public announcement, Netanyahu and Katz approved “infrastructure works in ‘Green Rafah,’ in eastern Rafah, to establish a residential project for Palestinians outside Hamas control,” Army Radio said.
“Green Rafah” is an area controlled by the Israeli army within the so-called Yellow Line separating areas occupied by Israel from zones where Palestinians are allowed to move.
The area has been “completely leveled and cleared and is currently empty” and will be “under the control of a multinational force,” the radio said.
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“The infrastructure works that have now been given the green light will allow contractors and workers to enter the area and carry out excavation work and connect electricity, water and sewage systems,” the report said.
“The contractors and workers who will operate in the area are Palestinians from Gaza,” the outlet said, citing Israeli security sources. “They are currently undergoing security screening by the Shin Bet security agency to obtain approval to enter areas along the Yellow Line. They are expected to begin work within weeks, or shortly thereafter,” the sources stated.
Netanyahu’s office, however, told the radio that the report “distorts the facts and republishes outdated information.”
The project is a UAE pilot initiative that has been underway for several months, the office claimed.
“The electricity, sewage and water works will not be carried out by contractors from Gaza but will be supervised by the Israeli army,” it added.
The Israeli army has launched a genocidal war in Gaza since October 2023, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians and injuring over 174,000, most of them women and children, while devastating about 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure.
