BETLEHEM: The Israeli occupation authorities today seized, under the name of military order, a 767-square-meter plot of land in the village of Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.

The head of the village council in Umm al-Khair, Khalil al-Hathalin, said that the occupation seized the land in the Shu’aib community in Masafer Yatta, in order to build a colonial wall around the illegal colony of Karmiel.

He pointed out that the wall is close to residents’ homes, noting that the occupation has issued several decisions to seize citizens’ lands in the southern and eastern sides of the Shu’aib community.

He added that the occupation seeks to displace Palestinians from their lands in order to expand the the illegal colonies of Karmiel and Itshar Man, built on citizens’ lands in Masafer Yatta.

The village of Umm al-Khair and other residential communities in Masafer Yatta are subjected to extensive demolition operations, as the occupation forces demolished more than two-thirds of the village’s homes last
June.

Al-Hathalin said that the occupation forces have recently escalated the demolition operations in Masafer Yatta significantly, as part of a colonial plan that the extreme Israeli right seeks to implement, and which aims to displace the Palestinian population from those areas in favor of colonial expansion.

Source: Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA