Middle East Monitor / June 22, 2020
A new road for Israeli settlers is being built illegally by the Israeli occupation forces on Palestinian land in the village of Nahalin, west of Bethlehem, Wafa news agency reported.
The new road will link the two illegal Jewish settlements: Beitar Illit and Modi’in Illit, situated west of Bethlehem and east of Lod (Lydda) respectively.
Deputy-Mayor of Nahalin village, Hani Fanoun, told Wafa that Israeli army bulldozers and equipment began expanding the bypass road by a width of ten metres and a length of two kilometres, thus grabbing Palestinian lands in the Ein Fares area.
Fanoun added that the area of Palestinian land confiscated for the purpose of the expansion of the settler-only bypass road would divide 3,000 dunams (741 acres) of Palestinian farm lands, thus making it difficult for local farmers and residents to reach their farmlands.
He noted that such Israeli construction work comes at a difficult time when the entire West Bank area is now engaged in a battle to control the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to plague the region.
They also come two weeks before the planned Israeli annexation of large swathes of the occupied West Bank as part of the US’ so-called ‘deal of the century’.
