The occupation state hardly ever misses an occasion or a circumstance pass by in the region, whether on a regional level or locally, without utilizing it to enforce more colonial measures. Colonialism, with all its implementations on the ground, such as the constant land expropriation and tightening the grip on Palestinian citizens, deprives them of their lands through land expropriation or preventing their access to these lands, thus rendering these lands to wastelands to create a new justification to control them.
Looking at the latest security events and the accompanying old-new announcements made by the leaders of the colonial project in the occupation state related to reinforcing colonial activity in every area where a Palestinian resistance operation occurs. These kinds of announcements come mostly from the extremist right-wing Israeli occupation Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, or the Israeli occupation government’s Minister of Transport Miri Regev, or even from the Minister of Colonialism Orit Strock. All of these announcements fall into the same category: more colonialism as a form of revenge against the Palestinians.
The most notable of these announcements was the latest series that accompanied resistance operations in specific areas of the West Bank. The official institution took on its shoulders turning these announcements into reality, whether by confiscating large areas of surrounding land or by presenting master plans of the so-called “High Planning Committee” affiliated with the so-called “Civil Administration” supervised by the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich in his capacity as a minister in the occupation’s so-called “Ministry of Security”.
On the 22nd of February of this year, following an operation targeting colonizers near the Ma’ale Adumim colony, located on the lands of the Jerusalem Governorate, the occupation state announced that it was going to confiscate lands and study master plans for nearby colonies. Indeed, after only one week, the occupation army confiscated 2642 dunums of private land in Abu Dis and Al-Euzariyah by declaring them as state lands in response to the operation. This confiscation, which is considered one of the largest land confiscations in the past period, clearly aimed to link the areas of influence of the colonies of Ma’ale Adumim and Kedar, which were established on citizens’ lands in the Jerusalem Governorate. The occupation was not satisfied with this, during the same period, it presented 3 large master plans aimed at studying the construction of approximately 1000 new colonial units belonging to the colonies of Ma’ale Adumim, Kedar, and Rafat in response to the operation.
Less than a month later, and following another operation that took place west of Ramallah, specifically in the lands separating the villages of Deir Ibzi' and Kafr Ni'ma, the Occupation Minister of Finance and Minister of Transportation, Miri Rajiv, quickly announced the acceleration of planning and implementing a road linking the Gush Talmonim colony to Route 443. It is The road, which aims to shorten the distance to Jerusalem, passing through the Palestinian territories and areas of Palestinian villages in which there is currently no presence of colonies and therefore colonizers. Moreover, colonizers have been planning for a long time to build roads to facilitate population expansion in the region by tens of thousands of them.
The colonies of Gush Talmonim include Talmon, Dolev, Nahliel, Kerem Rim, Neria, Harsha, Halamish, and Zeit Raanan, established on lands west of Ramallah, which collectively include about 9,500 colonizers. It is located exactly northwest of Ramallah, between the Palestinian villages of Al-Mazraa Al-Qibliya, Bitello, Deir Ammar, and Ras Karkar.
In the middle of the year 2023, that is, before the start of the terrible aggression against our people, and shortly after a resistance operation was carried out in the vicinity of the Eli colony established between the Ramallah and Nablus governorates on June 20, 2023, the leaders of the occupying state, through the Prime Minister this time, Netanyahu, hastened to announce the start of studying 1,000 new colonial units. Specifically related to the Eli colony as a response to the operation, and in fact, three plans were included in the so-called “Planning Council” session, which studies the expansion processes in the colonies. The approvals then led to the “legitimization” of a group of colonial outposts, which are three outposts surrounding the colony, which were established on the lands of the Ramallah and Nablus governorates (see side map).
The first is Bilgai Mayim, through the approval of two master plans for it bearing the number יוש/8/237 and יוש/6/237 to build a total of 499 colonial units on an area of 412 dunums, while the second outpost was approved in the same geographical area, which is Heovel Harim. With 407 colonial units on an area estimated at 351 dunums of citizens’ land, its master plan bore the number יוש/4/237, and the master plans also approved the establishment of a new outpost whose plan carried the plan number יוש/5/237, aiming to build 650 new colonial units on an area estimated at 638 dunums.
Everything the occupying state does appears to be a complete implementation of the idea of collective punishment targeting the Palestinians and their lands, in addition to psychological blackmail through which it is intended to undermine the popular incubator for everything related to the resistance act in all its forms, not to mention, fundamentally, the lack of legitimacy and legality in what the occupying state is doing by all international laws. It remains the colonizer's bet on time and imposing facts on the ground, in the face of a world that does not move as long as the perpetrator is known.