{"id":5682,"date":"2024-07-18T16:38:58","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T16:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=5682"},"modified":"2024-07-18T16:38:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T16:38:59","slug":"israeli-settlement-threatens-palestinian-unesco-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=5682","title":{"rendered":"Israeli settlement threatens Palestinian UNESCO village"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The new outpost on a Battir hilltop, also not approved by Israel, was served an eviction notice that Olayan’s cousin Ghassan Olayan said has not been enforced because of the Gaza war<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On a hillside near Palestinian landowner Olayan Olayan’s olive groves, young Israeli settlers are hammering out a new, illegal outpost in a UNESCO-protected zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olayan and his neighbours have long battled attempts to settle the land in Battir, a heritage site in the Israeli-occupied West Bank famed for its ancient stone terraces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israeli construction in the West Bank has boomed since the war began in the Gaza Strip, even though all settlements in the territory are considered illegal under international law.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new outpost on a Battir hilltop, also not approved by Israel, was served an eviction notice that Olayan’s cousin Ghassan Olayan said has not been enforced because of the Gaza war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outpost already has a flagpole, living quarters and a barn for sheep that roam a rocky hill covered by olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I ploughed the land and planted it until it bore fruit trees,” said Olayan, who at 83 is older than the state of Israel itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Some trees were 50 years old, or even more, and suddenly the settlers came and wanted to devour the land and take it from us,” he added, his voice shaky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heletz settlement<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Even more concerning to the Olayans than the encroaching outpost is the adjacent, future settlement of Heletz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yonatan Mizrahi of settlement watchdog Peace Now said Heletz was among five settlements “deep in Palestinian territory” approved by the Israeli government on June 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is a settlement that is going to block Battir and in many ways create tension between the neighbours,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heletz and the outpost sit inside the UNESCO protection zone for Battir, one of four listed heritage sites in the West Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UNESCO classification means the village can get technical, legal, and monetary assistance to preserve sites deemed in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Battir, children splash in the Roman-era fountain that waters the terraces where tomatoes, corn, aubergines and olive trees grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2,000-year-old dry stone walls supporting the landscape earned the village its cultural inscription in 2014. However, the classification has done little to prevent seizures of the surrounding farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Battir’s inhabitants have beaten in court at least three previous Israeli settlement outpost attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Ghassan Olayan fears the war since the Hamas attacks of October 7 on Israel will make the new, government-approved Heletz more likely to become reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preventing statehood<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

According to Olayan, Heletz is intended to link Jerusalem to Gush Etzion, a cluster of settlements deeper in the West Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that is achieved, Battir and the nearby Palestinian villages would be cut off from Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank, a process they fear will fragment a future Palestinian state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There will be no (territorial) continuity,” said Olayan, leaving only what some observers describe as an archipelago of Palestinian sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, openly states that preventing Palestinian statehood is the objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We will continue to develop the settlements to maintain Israel’s security and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he wrote on the X social media platform after the five latest settlements were approved in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent months, Israeli forces have blocked a road to Battir, nearly doubling the time it takes to reach Jerusalem just 10 kilometres (six miles) north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked about the new outpost in Battir, an Israeli security official acknowledged that “an Israeli farm had been established without proper authorisation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The official told AFP “the possibility of authorising the farm will be weighed” as the development of Heletz gets underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Battir residents “raised several claims that the land belongs to them” but have “not presented documentation to support their position”, according to the official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olayan said documents from Ottoman times prove Battir inhabitants’ ownership of the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A UNESCO spokesperson said the UN cultural agency’s world heritage committee had been told about “reports of illegal constructions” and that Battir would be discussed at a session in late July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olayan fears that sleepy Battir, with its collective life centred around the Roman fountain’s irrigation system allotting each family a specific time slot to irrigate their crops, faces a difficult future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Battir is a peaceful village and the settlement will only bring trouble,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/israeli-settlement-threatens-palestinian-unesco-village\/article68416996.ece<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new outpost on a Battir hilltop, also not approved by Israel, was served an eviction notice that Olayan’s cousin Ghassan Olayan said has not been enforced because of the Gaza war On a hillside near Palestinian landowner Olayan Olayan’s olive groves, young Israeli settlers are hammering out a new, illegal outpost in a UNESCO-protected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[893,105,1868,52,1636,51,1021,1149],"class_list":["post-5682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-gaza","tag-geopolitics-2","tag-heritage","tag-israel","tag-israeli-agressions","tag-palestine","tag-unesco","tag-un-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5684,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions\/5684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}