Israeli settlement expansion goes unchecked
4/30/2015
Ten years after the Sasson’s report on illegal outposts sparked public outcry, Israel is on a course to legalise them
A 2012 report highlighted that Israel has been acquiring state land at a rate three times higher than the previous occupier, Jordan (AFP)
Jerusalem - Kamal Farhan Abbad’s home sits at the edge of the West Bank Palestinian village of Jalud, near Nablus. The view from his window should include rolling hills, olive groves and cultivated lands; instead it mostly features the red-roofed homes and caravans of nearby illegal Israeli settlements.
Abbad’s home is Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank under full and direct Israeli military control. It is home to 150,000 Palestinians who today are outnumbered by some 370,000 Israelis living in 237 settlements and outposts, which are deemed illegal according to international law.
These numbers, added to the metal mesh that protects the glass windows of Abbad’s house and the stones he says he keeps on the roof to throw back at the settlers when they come to attack, make this family home a bastion of resistance in the fight for sovereignty and control over land.
Abbad sits cross-legged on a thin foam mattress placed on the floor of his living room. He is in his 60s, and has six children and many grandchildren. He can remember a time when Jalud was a thriving village, when farmers would come and go from the land and when he could travel to the market in Nablus and stay away a whole day without wondering whether his family was safe.
- See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/settlement-expansion-goes-unchecked-311244118#sthash.fU8G1cwp.dpuf
