PLO Accuses Israeli Army of Supporting Efforts to Seize Palestinian Lands

Illustrative: A picture taken from the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus shows a view of the illegal outpost of Havat Gilad on February 2, 2018. (AFP Photo/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

The Palestinian Liberation Organization accused Saturday the Israeli Army of providing cover and facilitating efforts exerted by the Jewish National Fund to seize Palestinian lands.

The PLO’s National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements issued a press statement saying the Israeli Defense Ministry is secretly recruiting people at the Jewish National Fund to purchase hundreds of dunams of private, Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank for settlers who worked the land while its owners were denied access to it.

It added that the secret deals between the Israeli Defense Ministry and the Jewish National Fund also include purchasing lands in the Jordan Valley, Ramallah, and Hebron.

“Coordination between the occupation army and the Jewish National Fund is not new,” the PLO said.

One of the new deals between the Israeli Defense Ministry and the Jewish National Fund include a plot of land adjacent to the settlement of Hamra in the northern Jordan Valley, covering more than 1,000 dunams, most of which is planted with groves of date palms, whose fruit is intended for export.

The land’s Palestinian owners have been denied access to it for 50 years, as it was closed off by military order and lies east of the security fence along the Jordanian border.

However, during the past five decades, settlers were allowed in the area. They tilled the soil and cultivated the date groves.

Another deal was sealed in Ramallah for 4.6 million shekels, in addition to a third deal that's related to the case of the structure known as the “Bakri house,” located in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron.

The “Bakri house” affair started in 2005 when settlers took over the building, which is owned by the Palestinian Bakri family and then claimed to have purchased the building from a Palestinian. However, a police investigation revealed that the documents of the transaction were forged.

Last April, the Jewish National Fund’s board of directors approved the purchase of land in the West Bank, including in areas with isolated settlements, particularly in Nablus and Jenin.