Massive development works on a new PA Arab city have been carried out in secret on Israeli state-owned and privately owned Jewish land in areas C, at the heart of Samaria, near the Karnei Shomron industrial zone. The works include the development of lots, construction of buildings, opening and paving roads, and laying down infrastructure connections.
About six months ago, at the start of the initial groundbreaking works, the Regavim movement contacted law enforcement authorities but received no response and the fieldwork continued. So the group petitioned the court, detailing the extensive scope of works near the Karnei Shomron industrial that are carried out illegally every day on state lands as well as on privately owned belonging to Har VaGai, a company owned by the Zer family.
It should be noted that in similar cases when Jews settled Amona, Migron, and Netiv Ha’avot, the authorities were quick to order their removal and the destruction of their homes, even when only parts of the settlements stood on Arab-owned land. Here, they don’t bother, allowing a blatantly illegal Arab to take shape on Jewish-owned land.
Moshe Shmueli, the field coordinator for Regavim in Judea and Samaria, said, “We see before our eyes how, day by day, construction criminals take over huge areas of state land and private land belonging to Jews and only recently we documented another new building and tree plantings. It’s not a single house but a massive infrastructure of roads, water, electricity, and the preparation of lots for huge neighborhoods. The reality in which the enforcement authorities do nothing and the Jewish landowners stand helpless is simply infuriating.”
Head of the Samaria Regional Council Yossi Dagan said: “The government is systematically abandoning Area C and now also private lands that Jews have purchased. If these were private Arab lands used by Jews, everyone would be up in arms. This failure is inconceivable. Selective enforcement is reaching a peak we have not seen before. We demand from the relevant elements both in the field and in government to immediately stop the construction and takeover of areas C, on private land and state lands, which are all assets of the State of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who is the lone ruler of Judea and Samaria under Israeli law, has declared over the past two years he spent in office that he aims to strengthen the Palestinian Authority in its struggle against Hamas. But on the way, he has also boosted the PA’s terrorist arm Fatah, promoted family reunifications that threaten to flood Israel with PA Arabs, and encourages Palestinian expansion into Area C, while choking the Jewish settlements by limiting them to “natural growth only.”
