Zionist Restrictions ‘Risk Turning West Bank Into Another Gaza’

Date: 23 January 2023 - 21:45

News ID: ۱۱۱۶۵۷

AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – Human Rights Watch charged Monday that new rules by the Zionist regime for foreigners entering the West Bank risked turning the occupied territory into “another Gaza,” cutting residents off from the outside world.

The regulations, which have faced waves of condemnation from the European Union and United States, have also been clouded by uncertainty.

The occupying regime has said the rules, which came into force in October, are aimed at clarifying the procedures surrounding West Bank entry and are being implemented on a two-year trial basis.

They were also revised last year amid widespread criticism.

Despite those revisions, HRW said the measures “threaten to further isolate Palestinians from loved ones and global civil society.”

“By making it harder for people to spend time in the West Bank, Israel is taking yet another step toward turning the West Bank into another Gaza, where two million Palestinians have lived virtually sealed off from the outside world for over 15 years,” HRW’s Eric Goldstein said.

Protests After Threats to Remove Palestinian Village

Meanwhile, Palestinians have protested against threats by top Zionist politicians to imminently carry out the forced displacement of the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar on the eastern outskirts of Al-Quds, home to at least 180 people.

The protest took place on Monday after far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would push ahead with the village’s forced removal and plans emerged of a visit to the site by far-right ministers, including Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

A number of politicians from the occupying regime’s parliament’s biggest party, Likud, eventually did gather near the village before later leaving.

Palestinians have decried the false equivalency between Khan al-Ahmar and Zionist settlements, which are illegal under international law.

“Since 1967, there have been military orders for demolishing homes, closed military zones and others, and then these areas are transformed into illegal settlements and nature reserves,” Eid Jahalin, the spokesperson for the village, said at Monday’s protest.

“Our fate is to remain in this area,” Jahalin said. “Whoever thinks that it is just Khan al-Ahmar – there are demolitions in the Jordan Valley, demolitions in Masafer Yatta, in Al-Quds city – it is something constantly happening across all of Palestine.”

The fate of Khan al-Ahmar has captured international attention for its years-long legal battle with the occupying regime’s authorities over its survival.

Orit Strook, minister of settlement in the regime’s cabinet, claimed the homes, as well as “tens of neighborhoods” approved by Palestinian authorities, are in fact “located on land belonging to the Jewish people,” making a reference to the “Area C” of the occupied West Bank which is classified as Israeli-owned by the apartheid regime.

She also claimed that the Palestinians who build on their lands are “carrying out illegal construction without permits.” She called on the Zionist minister, Yoav Galant to destroy these houses.

Despite admitting that settlement outposts like “Or Chaim” are illegal, Strook said that the current cabinet of the Israeli regime, based on an agreement of the coalition cabinet, will try to quickly recognize dozens of settlement outposts and approve construction operations to facilitate settlement building in the West Bank, the areas where the settlers are called “Hilltop youth.”

The Zionist regime routinely demolishes Palestinian houses in the occupied West Bank and East Al-Quds, claiming that the structures have been built without the so-called Israeli permits, which are almost impossible to obtain. They also sometimes order Palestinian owners to demolish their own houses or pay the costs of the demolition if they do not.

Almost 75 percent of applications for a permit by Palestinian residents of Al-Quds are rejected by the Israeli municipality, according to rights groups.

The Tel Aviv regime plans to force out Palestinian families from different neighborhoods in East Al-Quds in an attempt to replace them with settlers.

More than 600,000 Zionists live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Al-Quds.