"Settlement" building quadrupled in 2010

As Palestinians commemorate Land Day, the anniversary of the uprising against Israel's land confiscation, a report from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released a report showing Israel's settlement project is rapidly escalating. Thirty-five years on from the uprising, in which six young protesters were killed by Israeli forces, Palestinians constitute almost half of the population of the Palestine under the British Mandate, but have access to less than 15 percent of the land, the PCBS report said. Israel's separation Wall has confiscated around 733 square kilometres of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, the report notes. Israel says the wall was built to prevent attacks, but its route runs deep inside the West Bank, often as far as 22 kilometres, according to UN reports, and it often serves only to separate Palestinians from other Palestinians or from their lands. Land between the wall and the Green Line has been used for illegal Israeli 'settlements' and military bases. PCBS found that in 2010, Israel built 6,794 Jewish-only housing units on occupied Palestinian land, four times more than in 2009. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, it is illegal for an occupying power to transfer its population into territory it occupies. In September 2010, President Mahmoud Abbas refused to continue peace negotiations while Israel continued to build on land which would be a Palestinian state in a peace agreement. Despite pleas from across the international community -- including the US, EU, UN and Russia -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a curb on illegal building, and the so-called peace talks collapsed. Although US President Barack Obama says Israeli settlement building is an "obstacle to peace", his administration recently vetoed a UN resolution condemning settlement construction. After the vote, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said "we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity." "Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace." However, Rice said the resolution risked encouraging the parties to stay out of negotiations. Historically, more Jewish-only housing has been built on occupied Palestinian land during 'peace negotiations' than in any other time.

All this activity has been accompanied by a veritable orgy of demolitions, from single lean-to extensions to whole villages. At 7:00 am on the morning of March 29th 2011 the Israeli military demolished the village of Amniyr , destroying seven tent dwellings and confiscating the remains. This is the second time in just over a month that the Israeli army has demolished the village. One resident was injured by a blow to his head by the butt of a gun, and four required treatment for inhalation of teargas used by the soldiers. Israel does not deny that the demolished homes are on private land owned by the village’s Palestinian residents. Immediately after the demolitions were finished, villagers began to reconstruct what they could out of the rubble. As residents started gathering stones from a demolished sheep pen, the sounds of an Israeli bulldozer could be heard across the valley as it continued to excavate new construction for the illegal Israeli 'settlement' of Susiya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myt23xhMEMk

http://palsolidarity.org/2011/03/17253/ Photo: Maan News