RAMALLAH – The Israeli government Tuesday decided to confiscate 800 dunams of Palestinian lands near the West Bank city of Nablus to widen a bypass road. Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, said that Israeli Civil Administration officers handed notifications for the Palestinian owners in his villages of Beit Eiba, Al-Naqourah, Zawata and Ijnisenya. Daghlas said that the warrants were signed by the commander of Israeli army in West Bank. According to the order, “the lands will be used for the widening of the Zawata bypass road.” Daghlas said that the road is used only by Jewish settlers. In the West Bank, there are more than 500,000 Jewish occupiers who live with 2.5 million Palestinians. Tension has been always on between the two sides that usually turn into violence. In recent months Jewish occupiers have increased their acts of harassment against Palestinians in the West Bank as a “price tag” for the decisions of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to raze unauthorized settlement outposts in the Palestinian territories. The issue of settlements is one of the thorniest issues the stall the resumption of direct peace talks between Palestinian Authority and Israel since September 2010. The international community, including the United States, Israel's most important ally, has been urging Israel to totally freeze its settlement constructions, yet the rightist government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has so far refused to yield to that demand. On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he will ask the United Nations on September 27 to recognize the Palestine as a non-member observer state despite pressure to cancel the bid. Abbas said at a press conference held at the Presidential compound of Al-Muqata'a in Ramallah that “there are many challenges and much pressure aiming to stop us from turning to the UN.” He added that “At the United Nations, we want to say that we are a state under occupation … there are 133 countries that have recognized a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.” Abbas asked the international body in September 2011 to recognize a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with West Jerusalem as its capital. The PA failed to muster the nine votes needed in the 15-member Security Council to approve their bid for membership as a state, which they blame on US pressure on some members of the council. The US and Israel strongly opposed the bid. The US administration has said it wants the recognition of the Palestinian state to be a result of a negotiated agreement between the concerned parties.
