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.



French Minister in Western Sahara to Back Moroccan Sovereignty

This handout photograph released by Morocco's Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication on February 17, 2025 shows Morocco's Minister of Youth, Culture, and Communication Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid (C-R) and France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati (C-L) visiting Tarfaya, in southern Morocco. (Moroccan Culture Ministry / AFP)
This handout photograph released by Morocco's Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication on February 17, 2025 shows Morocco's Minister of Youth, Culture, and Communication Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid (C-R) and France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati (C-L) visiting Tarfaya, in southern Morocco. (Moroccan Culture Ministry / AFP)
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French Minister in Western Sahara to Back Moroccan Sovereignty

This handout photograph released by Morocco's Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication on February 17, 2025 shows Morocco's Minister of Youth, Culture, and Communication Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid (C-R) and France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati (C-L) visiting Tarfaya, in southern Morocco. (Moroccan Culture Ministry / AFP)
This handout photograph released by Morocco's Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication on February 17, 2025 shows Morocco's Minister of Youth, Culture, and Communication Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid (C-R) and France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati (C-L) visiting Tarfaya, in southern Morocco. (Moroccan Culture Ministry / AFP)

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati began a visit on Monday to disputed Western Sahara where she will meet officials and open a French cultural center in a show of support for Moroccan sovereignty over the desert territory.

The long-frozen conflict, dating back to 1975, pits Morocco, which considers the region its own, against the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement.

"This is a strong symbolic and political moment," Dati told Moroccan reporters. Her nation in July became the second permanent UN Security Council member after the US to back Morocco's position.

French President Emmanuel Macron visited Rabat in October telling parliament that Western Sahara was Moroccan, while his foreign minister promised to expand France’s consular presence to the territory.

Economic deals worth over $10 billion were signed during the presidential visit, following which Morocco mediated the release of four French spies held in Burkina Faso.

French support for Rabat over Western Sahara irks Algiers.

Morocco has also won backing from Western Sahara's former colonial power Spain, as well as Israel and more than two dozen African and Arab nations.

The Polisario in 2020 withdrew from a UN-brokered truce but the conflict remains of low intensity.