Ramallah, June 19, 2023: The Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) condemns the recent decisions of the Israeli occupation government, particularly the changes that accelerate colonial construction and facilitates obtaining the needed permits in this regard. The head of the commission, Muayyad Shaa’ban, said in a statement issued by his office this morning: “The occupation state has granted the extremist fascist minister, Bezalel Smotrich, absolute power in expanding existing colonies and retroactively legitimizing colonial outposts, thereby reducing the process of approving colonial construction from five steps to one. This is a clear message from the Israeli occupation government to international community, showing its disregard for all laws and regulations that criminalize colonialism and calls for its cessation, especially United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 of 2016."
Shaa’ban added, that since its first day in power, the current Israeli occupation government has brought up a series of agendas, in which settler-colonialism that aims at controlling the Palestinian land, displace Palestinians, and isolate them was at the core of, in a blatant violation of the most fundamental of human rights.
Shaa’ban said that the fervent race of settler-colonial construction these days seeks to effectively annex the West Bank lands, which are solidified day by day on the ground, under a number of names and through a series of measures implemented by the occupation in this regard. Sha’ban also pointed out that within one year, the Israeli occupation government issued a total of 19 orders to seize Palestinian lands for military purposes, issued 3 expropriation orders, modified the borders of a natural reserve, and issued 4 orders declaring state lands. As a result, 48 thousand dunums of Palestinian lands were confiscated in the span of just one year, in addition, in the same period, it approved 63 colonial plans for the purposes of establishing 3,261 residential units in the colonies. (June 2022 End of May 2023). Furthermore, the Israeli government established more than 89 agricultural outposts controlling more than 310 thousand dunums (Since 1978), as well as constructing many colonial blocs that surround Palestinian villages and towns. Despite its clear flagrant violations of the international agreements and the Fourth Geneva Convention, it receives a shameful international silence that ignores the crimes perpetrated daily on Palestinian land.
Mr Shaa’ban indicated that the Israeli occupying state, encourages its violent armed colonizers who are protected by the force of the occupation army to carry out crimes against the safe Palestinian villages and towns and to control the lands by force of arms. The Israeli government also pushes its fascist leaders, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and Netanyahu, toward committing much more devastation and wars by enacting racist laws on the one hand, and imposing a lot of restrictions on the Palestinians on the other hand.
Shaa’ban emphasized that our Palestinian people who face the danger of displacement in the villages and towns, from Masafer Yatta in the south to the Jordan Valley in the north, will not give up or surrender in front of the ongoing war on land, property and lives.
Shaa’ban called on all Palestinian national factions to adopt a comprehensive national strategy for popular resistance that would protect the Palestinian national resources and thwart all the colonial project aiming at controlling the Palestinian land.