Israel Legalises Settlement Outpost in Hebron

Hebron, MINA – The Israeli occupation authorities today legalized a colonial settlement outpost established on the lands of Dura town, south of Hebron, according to the Anti-Wall and Settlement Committee.

The committee said in a press statement that Israeli Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council (SPC) approved a detailed master plan under No. 521/1/B to retroactively legalize the colonial settlement outpost of Mitzpe Lachish (Givat Habooster), annexing it to the nearby settlement of Negohot and allocating 520 donums of land for this purpose.

The master plan paves the way for turning Mitzpe Lachish, established in 2002, into a neighborhood of Negohot and constructing 158 new settler units, turning Negohot into a major colonial bloc over 811 donums of Palestinian land, WAFA reported.

The “Civil Administration” is the name Israel gives to the body administering its military occupation of the West Bank.

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Soldiers in the oxymoronically named Civil Administration determine where Palestinians may live, where and when they may travel (including to other parts of the occupied territories like Gaza and East Jerusalem), whether they can build or expand homes on their own land, whether they own that land at all, whether an Israeli settler can takeover that land among others.

Over 700,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.

The number of settlers has almost tripled since the Oslo Accords of 1993, when settlers’ number estimated 252,000. Illegal colonial settlements have leapt from 144 to over 515 in that time.

Israel’s nation-state law that passed last July stated that building and strengthening colonial settlements as a “national interest.”(T/R3/RE1)

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Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)