Ramallah: Israel has banned Palestinian farmers from cultivating tens of thousands of dunams of Waqf (religious endowment) land officially leased to them by the Palestinian Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Waqf, which owns the lands near the city of Jericho and in the Jordan Valley region.
Shaikh Moayad Al Helw, a senior Palestinian official who heads the Waqf Department in Jericho, told Gulf News that Israeli occupation authorities have already seized 40,000 dunams (approximately 10,000 acres) of land near Jericho.
“Israel has been seizing fertile Waqf land in the region under the pretext that the occupation forces need those lands for military purposes,” he said.
The entire area has been surrounded by Israeli colonies and outposts, and the occupation forces need more land to expand the illegal communities in the West Bank.
“Israel immediately hands the seized land over to colonists who turn them into farms,” Shaikh Al Helw told Gulf News. “The recently seized Waqf lands have been turned into 11 palm and grape agricultural colonies.”
Israel has been accelerating its plans to seize more Palestinian land. both Waqf and privately owned, in the Jordan Valley region.
The Palestinian Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Awqaf has filed 11 complaints in Israeli courts in an attempt to recover the seized land. They have submitted documents which they say prove the ministry’s ownership of the land, but to no avail.
“Many years ago, the ministry leased the land to Palestinian farmers to cultivate in exchange for annual fees. These fees are used towards funding the Zakat Fund and other religious schools and colleges in the region. The Israeli occupation forces have recently banned the Palestinian farmers from all access to this land,” said Shaikh Al Helw. “Israel’s [moves] ... are ultimately affecting the Palestinian national economy negatively to the tune of an estimated $3 billion a year.”
The Jordan Valley region is Palestine’s food basket, and is very important to national food security. The region has been a divisive issue between Palestine and the Israeli occupation, and has led to the breakdown in peace talks between the two. Israel has expressed unchanging opposition to leaving the region and has rejected any territorial concessions to the Palestinians, and has officially announced plans to permanently annex the Jordan Valley region, which is home to dozens of Jews-only colonies and thousands of colonists.
