RAMALLAH, Israeli occupation authorities levelled today eight dunums of Palestinian owned land in the village of Sinjil, to the north of Ramallah city in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.
Ayed Ghafri, a local Palestinian activist, told WAFA that Israeli bulldozers broke into the area and levelled 8 dunums of land owned by local Palestinian villagers.
He added that the area levelled by Israeli bulldozers is surrounded by three colonial Israeli settlements and an Israeli military outpost, and that Israel is seeking to take control of the entire area to connect the three settlements and the outpost.
According to Israeli rights group B’Tselem, Israel has used a complex legal and bureaucratic mechanism to take control of more Palestinian land in the West Bank.
The principal tool used to take control of land is to declare it “state land.” This process began in 1979 and is based on a manipulative implementation of the Ottoman Land Law of 1858. Other methods employed by Israel to take control of land include seizure for military needs, declaration of land as “abandoned assets,” and the expropriation of land for public needs.
Source: Palestine News & Info Agency