RAMALALH, March 29, 2017 (WAFA) – Since its occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli authorities had classified about 40 per cent of the area of the West Bank as state land, which it is using for the benefit of Jewish settlers and settlements rather than the Palestinian inhabitants of this land, Ola Awad, president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said on the eve of the 41st anniversary of Land Day.

On March 30, 1976, the Israeli authorities announced the confiscation of 21,000 dunums of Palestinian land in the Galilee in the north of the country, the Triangle in the center and the Naqab in the south prompting wide scale protests by the Palestinian Arab citizens. Israeli police responded violently to the protests, killing six young demonstrators. Since then, Palestinians have been marking March 30 of every year as Land Day.

Awad said while Israel had built hundreds of illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, about 48 per cent of the built up area of Israeli settlements are located on privately-owned Palestinian land.

In 2016, the Israeli occupation authorities ratified 115 new settlement master plans, which include the construction of over 5,000 housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

In addition, while Israel demolishes Palestinian buildings and puts obstacles and impediments to the issuance of building permits in East Jerusalem, it approved the construction of thousands of housing units in the Israeli settlements. Israel demolished 309 buildings during 2016 in addition to issuing about 227 demolition orders.

In the West Bank, and specifically in Area C, which is under full Israeli military control and which makes up 60 per cent of the area of the occupied West Bank, Israel demolished 714 houses and establishments, in addition to issuing 657 demolition orders.

The demolitions in Jerusalem and the West Bank led to the displacement of more than 1,620 Palestinians, half of them children, said the PCBS official.

M.K.