Defense Ministry Plans on Establishing New Israeli Settlement in West Bank

[Israeli]

3. How ???

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596 Dunams were Declared as State Line in Eli through Blue Line Team Amendments

22/3/16

The Palestinian News agency Ma'an reported yesterday that the Civil Administration issued a new order determining state land boundaries in the settlement of Eli.

The order is a result of the work of the Civil Administration's Blue Line Team which works to correct inaccurate state land declarations made during the 1980s. According to the new order, 2,781 dunams of the lands of the villages Lubban al Sharqiya, Karyut and Al-Sawiya are now considered state lands, 596 dunams of which were not considered state lands according to the old declaration. Additionally, 590 dunams were detracted from the old declaration.

Peace Now: This is a new land expropriation, even though the government refers to it as a 'correction of state land boundaries.' The new procedure of announcing the results of the Blue Line Team's work exposes only a fraction of the land takeover that occurred in the last decade without any public knowledge. Under the excuse of technical corrections, without publication and without the knowledge of Palestinian landowners, tens of thousands of dunams of private Palestinian lands had become state lands for the purpose of settlements. While the public and legal debate were focused on settlement building on private Palestinian lands, the real story has been the government's massive and systematic state land declarations through the Blue Line Team work. The Netanyahu government continues to sabotage the chance for peace and crosses many red lines avoided by previous governments such as massive land expropriations meant for settlement expansion.

See much more @

http://peacenow.org.il/eng/BlueLineEli