On Sunday, illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers confiscated dozens of Dunams of Palestinian farmlands near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
Hasan Breijiyya, the head of the Bethlehem office of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said a large number of paramilitary colonizers invaded dozens of dunams of Palestinian lands in the Khallet An-Nakhla area near Abu Njeim, southwest of Bethlehem.
Breijiyya added that the colonizers came from the Efrat illegal colony and started planting the lands after preventing the Palestinians from entering them.
Three days ago, the colonizers invaded and confiscated 12 Dunams of Palestinian lands in the same area and planted evergreens, and before that, they confiscated 300 Dunams of Palestinian farmlands under the protection of the Israeli occupation army.
By planting some trees and crops on stolen Palestinian lands, the colonizers try to claim ownership of the lands the stole, or that they were “abandoned by the Palestinians.”
Furthermore, the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall and the various military restrictions continued to prevent dozens of thousands of Palestinians from entering their lands across the occupied West Bank.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
