Israeli authorities served notifications, on Saturday to seize 42 dunams of land in the village of al-Khadir, to the south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, a local activist said.
Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Anti-Settlement Committee in the village, told WAFA that Israeli forces notified Palestinians from the village about their intention to take over the 42 dunams, for “security reasons”.
The forces also notified a villager from al-Khadir about their intention to demolish a retaining wall he had built in the village.
According to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, “Over the years, Israel has used a number of legal and bureaucratic procedures in order to appropriate West Bank lands, with the primary objective of establishing settlements and providing land reserves for them.”
“Using primarily these five methods: seizure for military purposes; declaration of state lands; seizure of absentee property; confiscation for public needs; and initial registration, Israel has managed to take over about 50% of the lands in the West Bank, barring the local Palestinian public from using them.”
(photo: East Al Khadir, with Solomon’s Pool’s, Wikipedia)
