Israeli practices/Settlements – Letter from Jordan

Letter dated 9 September 1987 from the Permanent Representative of Jordan

to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I am transmitting to you the most recent information on Israeli settlement activity in the occupied Arab territories during the month of July 1987. This activity includes the confiscation of Arab land and acts of aggression against Arab citizens and their property, with a view to the implementation of Israeli settlement schemes aimed at expelling the Arab inhabitants from their land and taking it over, in contravention of the principles of international law relating to military occupation and, in particular, the Hague Convention of 1907 and the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The continuation of such a policy constitutes a danger for international peace and security and for peace efforts and prospects in the region.

I should be grateful if you would have this letter and its annex circulated as an official document of the General Assembly, under item 76 of the provisional agenda, entitled "Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the population of the occupied Territories", and of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Abdullah SALAH

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

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* A/42/150.

ANNEX

Israeli settlement operations, confiscation of land and acts of aggression

against Arab citizens and their property during the month of July 1981

I. Confiscation of land and establishment of settlements

– The Israeli occupation authorities confiscated over 700 dunums of land belonging to the village of Yasuf and Jamma'in, Nablus district, during July 1987. The owners of the land in question protested against the confiscation order.

– On 21 July 1987 the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israeli Government had approved the establishment of four new settlements in the West Bank. These settlements, which have now been started and are at various stages of planning and construction, are as follows:

1. Migdalim, south-east of Nablus, where 20 settler families are now living in temporary homes.

2. Hadar Betar, west of Bethlehem, where 14 settler families are living.

3. Kidar or Neot Adumim, east of Jerusalem, where 20 settler families are living.

4. Maskiot, in the northern Jordan Valley, established by the United Kibbutz Movement.

II. Acts of aggression against Arab land and property during the month of July 1987

The Israeli occupation authorities and Jewish settlers made repeated attempts to take over Arab land. Those included the bulldozing of Arab agricultural land and the destruction of fruit-trees. Details of the acts of aggression are as follows:

1. On 1 July 1987 the Israeli Military Governor ordered the heads of six families living in the south-western agricultural district of the Gaza Strip to vacate the area designated for the orchard irrigation project. There are approximately 250 individuals in the families, and they reside on land whose area is estimated to be approximately 450 dunums. The land is cultivated and planted wit:h trees and is adjacent to the Nezarim settlement.

2. Israeli settlers burned down a number of olive-trees in the Mar Elias district of Bethlehem.

3. On 28 July 1987, "unidentified persons" sprayed 50 olive-trees with a chemical substance which destroyed them. The trees are the property of citizen Adil Shubaita of Azzun.

4. On 7 July 1987 the Israeli police carried out a provocative inspection of the vehicle belonging to citizen Akram Sa'id Rabi', from Beit Inan, Ramallah district.  They ruined the vehicle's wheels, smashed its lights and severed wires in its engine.

5. The Israeli authorities in Beersheba informed citizen Husayn al-Nasasirah, from the village of Al-Laqiyah, that he would have to vacate his land, which is planted with olive-trees and covers 200 dunums.

6. Under the protection of the Israeli frontier guard and police force, Israeli bulldozers cleared a six-dunum plot of land in the Qalandiya district on 22 July 1987, on the pretext that it had been sold to an Israeli individual and that he intended to build a commercial complex and a four-storey military centre to be used by the Israeli Army to observe activities inside the Qalandiya camp. The police forces prevented the owners of the land from approaching the bulldozers with a view to halting the work.

III. Settlement news

– During a meeting with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in July 1987, the extremist right-wing Ha Tehiya movement called on the Israeli Government to begin immediate construction of settlements at a number of new locations in heavily-populated Arab districts, particularly in areas close to the town of Jenin and on Mount Hebron.

Shamir replied that it was unthinkable that construction of the new settlements should be halted. He said it had been agreed that contacts on the subject of the new settlements should be continued between Ha Tehiya leaders and ministers of the Likud bloc with responsibility for construction operations.

Yitzhak Shamir also promised to establish two new settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and proposed a programme – valued at some 15 million shekels to increase assistance to existing settlements and to strengthen such settlements.  He also promised that 3,300 construction projects would be initiated in the occupied territories next year.

The leadership of the Israeli Settlements Council for the West Bank held a meeting at the Ofra settlement, during which the Ha Tehiya movement threatened to support the call for early new elections to the Israeli Knesset if the Likud bloc did not take steps to establish new settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The members of the Settlements Council adopted a decision to implement a plan for the settlement of 30,000 new Jewish settlers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the course of the next 18 months. They also decided to begin work on the construction of six new settlements in addition to the six settlements decided upon in the coalition agreement.

– During a tour of industrial sites at Jewish settlements in the Nablus district on 6 July 1987, Israeli Minister of Industry and Trade Ariel Sharon called for the construction of new settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the creation of "faits accomplis" in those territories. He also called for encouragement of industrial projects in the Jewish settlements there.

– On 20 July 1987 Israeli radio reported that the Amnah settler wing of the extremist Gush Emunim movement intended to occupy a building near the Maale Adumim settlement in the near future. The latter is located between the Kefar Adumim settlement and the village of Mikhmas. The settlement nucleus is made up of 20 Jewish families.

Minister of Communications Haim Corfu stated that work would begin shortly on establishment of the Avni Hefitz settlement near Tulkarm.

– Mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek said that the number of Jewish settlers in Jewish quarters and settlements in the city of Jerusalem was now about 100,000, i.e., double the number of settlers in West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements.  Kollek asked for funds and assistance to be channelled to those settlements in view of their large size and requirements.

Kollek went on to say that the fact that new quarters in Jerusalem were located "outside the 1967 Green Line Border, in areas not internationally recognized as being a part of Jerusalem", made them settlements in the true sense of the word.

– On 24 July 1987 the Israeli newspaper Davar reported that the Amnah settler wing of the Gush Emunim movement was planning to establish seven new settlement bases in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by the end of the current year. The settlement bases, which the Amnah movement intends to convert into Jewish settlements in due course, were as follows:

(a) Dogit, in the Gaza Strip, the nucleus of which consists of 17 non-religious families from the Tel Aviv district;

(b) Veat Sedeh, in Gush Katif, the nucleus of which consists of 14 families and 15 bachelors (all religious);

(c) Ashhal, south of Mount Hebron, the nucleus of which consists of 10 non-religious families from southern Israel;

(d) Tzoref, in the Gush Etzion area, details of whose nucleus are not yet clear;

(e) Telmon or Anat, in the Nablus district, the nucleus of which consists of 10 families and 15 religious bachelors from the central Jerusalem district;

(f) Ginat, in the Jenin district, the nucleus of which consists of eight families and eight bachelors;

(g) Allon, near Kefar Adumim, the nucleus of which consists of 22 religious and non-religious families, the intention being that the settlement should be of mixed composition.

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