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Terrorist state in Judea, Samaria right around the corner, warns Israeli NGO

More than 28,000 illegal Palestinian structures have been built in areas under Israeli jurisdiction in Judea and Samaria in the last decade, threatening Israel’s future, warns NGO Regavim.

By World Israel News Staff

A carefully planned and meticulously orchestrated takeover? More than 28,000 illegal Palestinian structures have been built in areas under Israeli jurisdiction in Judea and Samaria in the last decade, threatening Israel’s future, warns NGO Regavim.

After intensive data collection and a mapping project that took several months, Regavim has now released comprehensive data on the Palestinian takeover of land in Area C, the section of Judea and Samaria under full Israeli jurisdiction.

Regavim’s stated mission is to ensure responsible, legal, accountable and environmentally friendly use of Israel’s national lands and the return of the rule of law to all areas and aspects of the land and its preservation.”

The newly drawn map of the situation on the ground reflects both illegal construction and land-grabs facilitated by “agricultural use” that takes advantage of the archaic system of law currently in force in these areas, says the organization. All of these projects – construction and agriculture in the service of the future Palestinian state – are made possible by massive financial support provided by the European Union, individual European governments and European NGOs.

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The master plan for this comprehensive, strategic operation was publicized 10 years ago, explains Regavim. Known as the Fayyad Plan for the Creation of the State of Palestine, then-prime minister of the Palestinian Authority Salaam Fayyad “laid out a clear and methodical program for seizing control of territory in Area C to form a broad and viable basis for the Palestinian state, specifically in the areas under Israeli control.

“Fayyad’s plan, the NGO continues, “published and activated only four years after the Palestinians and the Europeans committed to the Oslo framework, consciously bypasses all negotiation or compromise with Israel, and simply creates facts on the ground – facts that Regavim has mapped out and now revealed.”

The data, culled from analysis of GIS precise aerial photography, indicate that the number of illegal Palestinian structures has doubled over the last decade, “while [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu has stood at the head of our purportedly right-wing government,” Regavim charges.

According to Regavim, in 2009, the number of illegal structures in Area C stood at 29,784, while in 2018 the number surged to 58,435.

‘Far more worrying statistic’

“The far more worrying statistic is the area covered by illegal Palestinian construction: In 2009, some 44,538 dunams of land in Area C were being occupied illegally by Palestinian construction. In 2018, over 78,626 dunams have been overtaken.

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“The comparison of these figures with the Israeli ‘settlements’ in Area C is instructive,” the organization states. “Jewish communities currently cover some 2.5% of Area C. In the past decade, Jewish construction in Area C grew by less than 10,000 dunams, covering 47,327 dunams in 2008 and growing to an area of 56,700 dunams in 2018.”

According to Regavim, in addition to the Palestinian construction boom, the program of agricultural land seizure has succeeded in poaching hundreds of thousands of dunams of Israeli-owned state land in Area C: Illegal agricultural projects, carried out on land registered or in the process of registration to the State of Israel, have effectively taken over massive swaths of the open spaces in Area C, taking advantage of a loophole created by the enforcement of the Ottoman legal code in this area that grants rights on the basis of agricultural use.

The data collected and published by Regavim was shared in recent weeks with the mayors of municipalities in Judea and Samaria, who are expected to launch a campaign in the coming days, “sharply criticizing the government’s failure to enforce the law which has enabled the continued establishment of facts on the ground by the Palestinian Authority,” says Regavim. The mayors are expected to demand that the government formulate and enact an emergency campaign to halt any further progress toward the unilateral creation of a Palestinian state in Area C, with clear timetables for action, as well as concrete enforcement measures against recent illegal construction.

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‘Hard numbers speak for themselves’

Meir Deutsch, director-general of Regavim, released the following statement following the publication of the data:

“Gut feelings and hunches are easily argued, but the hard numbers speak for themselves and they are unequivocal. There is no status quo on the ground – the Palestinian Authority has been working non-stop to create immutable facts in Area C, while the State of Israel and its leadership have been fast asleep on the job. If the Israeli government doesn’t wake up, the citizens of Israel will wake up to a very harsh reality – a terrorist state right around the corner. The data are a wake-up call.”