Nearly half of the land occupied by Israeli settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank is private Palestinian property, a watchdog group said yesterday.
Forty-four percent of the land where the wildcat settlements were built belong to private Palestinian owners, Peace Now said.
The vast majority of the outposts — 80 of the more than 100 in the territory — were either partially or wholly built on private Palestinian land without authorization of the owners, it said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“[Israeli] Defense Minister Ehud Barak said recently that he wanted to dismantle the outposts built on private Palestinian land — he is going to have lots of work in the coming weeks and months,” Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer told army radio.
A senior settler official, Danny Dayan, rejected the report, saying that “not a single Arab has been harmed” by settlement activities.
Although the international community considers all Israeli settlements illegal, Israel makes a distinction between those authorized by the government and so-called wildcat outposts, set up by zealous settlers without state approval.
More than 280,000 people live in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The majority moved to the settlements for economic reasons, but an extremely vocal and often violent minority thinks the Jewish people have a God-given, biblical-era right to the land.
The residents of the outposts tend to be the most radical settlers, establishing their homes on any land they see fit.
Also yesterday, a minister close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not agree to US demands to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
“I want to say in a crystal clear manner that the current Israeli government will not accept in any fashion that legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria be frozen,” Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said, using the Israeli term for the West Bank.
“The government will defend the vital interests of the state of Israel,” he told army radio.
It was the first high-level reaction to a call by US President Barack Obama on Thursday during a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas that Israel stop settlement activity, a key obstacle in the hobbled Middle East peace talks.
Netanyahu has said his government would dismantle the outposts, but has argued that expansion of existing blocks should be allowed to continue.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia