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Israel Expands Illegal West Bank Settlement

Palestine Media Center
23 April, 2003

Despite international calls for a halt of illegal settlement-building in the occupied Palestinian territory, the speaker of the Israeli parliament, Reuven Rivlin, laid the first stone on Tuesday in a project to build more units in a West Bank Israeli settlement that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon had earlier hinted “might be dismantled”, as part of a future peace settlement.

Rivlin, a close associate of Sharon, visited the illegal Israeli settlement of “Shiloh”, 10 kilometers north of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, to take part in the inauguration of new housing units—which will grow big enough to become a neighborhood—under construction.

Sharon said in an April 13 interview that as part of the peace process, Israel would have to relinquish what he referred to as some areas closely associated with “Jewish history”.

“We are talking about the cradle of Jewish civilization. Our whole history is bound up with these places. Bethlehem, Shiloh and Beit El,” he said.

“And I know we will have to part with some of these place. There will be a parting from places that are connected to the whole course of our history. As a Jew, this agonizes me,” he added.

His comments caused anger among pro-settlement Israeli right wing politicians, who saw in them a hint that he might be willing to give up the settlements named.

But Rivlin, who made only guarded comments on Sharon’s words, visited “Beit Eil”, saying he traditionally spent the Jewish festival of Passover in that illegal settlement.

The latest Isareli attempt to create a new status quo in the occupied territory—by building more settlements there—come in stark contrast with a survey conducted by the Israeli arm of marketing information group Taylor Nelson Sofres last April, which showed that more than a third of Israelis supported the removal of all or most illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory to achieve ‘a true and comprehensive peace’.

The findings distinctively differ with the policies undertaken by Sharon, who has long been a champion of the settlement movement in the West Bank, although a new international peace plan still under wraps in Washington, and which he says he accepts “in principle,” calls for a freeze in settlement growth.

Adi Mintz of the so-called Jewish settlers council said Sharon’s words had reinforced the need for settlers to expand their illegal “communities”.

“This project has been planned for a long time. Shiloh is now full up. There is a lot of demand (for housing). Sharons’ words have bolstered the need to build,” he told AFP.

Israeli radio said the new project involved the construction of some 30 private homes.

Israeli settlements, considered illegal by the international community, are the main focus of the 30-month long Palestinian uprising, which has left more than 3,000 people dead, mostly Palestinians.

Around 200,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are built on Palestinian land occupied after the 1967 war, according to Israeli statistics.

IOF Persist in Detention Spree

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation troops shot and seriously wounded a senior Islamic Jihad activist, Anas Sheritah, in the West Bank city of Nablus early Wednesday, Israel Radio reported.

The Palestinian activist was later detained by occupation soldiers and was taken to an unknown location, witnesses said.

Meanwhile, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) detained Nur Titan, the leader of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the West Bank city of Qalqilyah, along with seven other Palestinians, Israeli state radio said.

Elsewhere in the occupied territory, two Islamic Jihad activists were detained in Jenin, the radio added.

The two men were kidnapped from a hospital in the northern West Bank city, where one of the men was receiving treatment for gunshot wounds, after he was shot by IOF.

IOF also detained fourteen Palestinians in the West Bank overnight, including four men from a village near Bethlehem.

Moreover, IOF opened fire at Palestinian students as they were trying to pass an Israeli roadblock between Ramallah city and Birzeit University in the West Bank.

A number of students and university staff were also detained by IOF, witnesses said.

In the Gaza Strip, IOF shelled Palestinians’ houses in Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in Rafah, Palestinian security sources said.

No casualties were reported in the attack, Palestinian medical sources said.