Palestinians Warn against Dozens of Settlement Plans

Palestinian demonstrators break a gate of the Israeli barrier during a protest against Israeli settlements in the outskirts of the village Kafr Thulth near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinian demonstrators break a gate of the Israeli barrier during a protest against Israeli settlements in the outskirts of the village Kafr Thulth near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
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Palestinians Warn against Dozens of Settlement Plans

Palestinian demonstrators break a gate of the Israeli barrier during a protest against Israeli settlements in the outskirts of the village Kafr Thulth near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinian demonstrators break a gate of the Israeli barrier during a protest against Israeli settlements in the outskirts of the village Kafr Thulth near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian parties warned on Saturday that dozens of settlement plans were being implemented at a quick pace to take advantage of the remaining term of US President Donald Trump.

The PLO’s National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance of Settlement confirmed that the Israeli government holds onto its policy of imposing changes in the remainder of Trump’s term.

The office stated, in its weekly report, that "the end of the year 2020 and the beginning of the new year 2021 witnessed an increase in settlement activities, plans and tenders and attacks on citizens and their properties."

Lands were seized in town of Al-Khader in Basin (8) from the Al-Shifa site, Wadi Al-Hindi and Basin No. (1) from the Umm Al-Tala plot in Artas village, and Basin (4) from the site of Wa'r Abu Mehr and Al-Aqban, and Basin (5) from the meadows site in the village of Tamrah, to the east.

The Israeli Ministry of Interior published an announcement issued by the so-called "Supreme Planning Council of the Civil Administration" regarding a new settlement plan, which stipulates the confiscation of 1,008 dunums of lands from Azzun village in the Qalqilya governorate to build settlements.

The new settlement plan, No. /13/8/115, includes the construction of 1,406 units in the southeast of the "El Fei Menashe" settlement.

In occupied east Jerusalem, the Israeli municipality approved, in its last session, a plan to establish a large dumpsite to collect, sort, and burn waste on private Palestinian land between the settlement of “Ma'ale Adumim” and the “Mishor Adumim” industrial zone, according to the report.



UNRWA Lebanon Says Not Impacted by US Aid Freeze or New Israeli Law

 Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)
Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)
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UNRWA Lebanon Says Not Impacted by US Aid Freeze or New Israeli Law

 Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)
Head of UNRWA in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus speaks during a press conference in her offices in Beirut, Lebanon January 29, 2025. (Reuters)

The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by US President Donald Trump's halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations.

"UNRWA currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for UNRWA," Dorothee Klaus told reporters at UNRWA's field office in Lebanon.

US funding to UNRWA was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by US lawmakers and after Israel accused 12 of the agency's 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war.

The UN has said it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made.

Klaus said that UNRWA Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the UN principle of neutrality.

One UNRWA teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon - killed in September in an Israeli strike - was found to have had an UNRWA job.

Klaus also said there was "no direct impact" on the agency's Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that "UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon."

The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA's operation on Israeli land - including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally - and contact with Israeli authorities from Jan. 30.

UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Its commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that UNRWA has been the target of a "fierce disinformation campaign" to "portray the agency as a terrorist organization."