© Agence France-PresseThe file photo, taken on February 21, 2019, shows a view of construction work at Ramat Shlomo, an Israeli settlement in the mainly Palestinian eastern sector of Jerusalem al-Quds. (By AFP)
Local Palestinian media reports said on Monday that the group placed barbed wire and electric fence around more than 600 dunams (0.6 square kilometers) of Palestinian-owned land in Khillet al-Oqda and al-Sweideh areas of the valley, which comprises a third of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli troops have also installed surveillance cameras on the seized land.
The illegal Israeli land grab in the occupied Jordan Valley is a regular occurrence by the extremist settlers and the Israeli military.
The Palestinian territories are seized by the Tel Aviv regime under the contested Absentee Property Law, which paves the way for Israel to take over the property of Palestinians who have been forced from their homeland following the 1948 war.
Armed illegal settlers East Jerusalem
First passed in 1950 after the creation of Israel inside the occupied territories, the law says house owners who fled to the "enemy territory" are declared "absent" or "missing" and their property can be put at the disposal of the regime.
© Marwan Abu Frieh/AdalahIsraeli police pinning eviction order on a house in Umm al-Hiran village in Negev/Naqab desert
Following the 1967 war, the law was applied to East al-Quds to enable Tel Aviv to confiscate homes of Palestinians that are not "absent" or "missing" but live in so-called adversarial territories.
Thousands of acres of privately-owned Palestinian lands were given to Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley in the 1960s and 1970s, and the confiscation continues.
The Israeli regime also has been involved in propping up settlements deemed as illegal by the international community due to their construction on occupied territory.
© Agence France-PresseThis picture taken on November 17, 2018 from East Jerusalem shows a view of the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim (C) with the Judaean desert seen in the background.
About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
PressTV further reports:
A number of US corporate foundations have reportedly given tens of thousands of dollars to several non-profits to fund settlement projects in the occupied West Bank as the Israeli regime presses ahead with its land expropriation policies in the occupied territories, irrespective of international outcry.
According to a report published by the monthly magazine, In These Times, Verizon Wireless telecommunications company, Pfizer pharmaceutical corporation, the Bank of America, American Express company, and financial services firm JPMorgan Chase, in addition to Deutsche Bank AG, a German multinational investment bank, have collectively donated over $25,000 to American non-profit organizations, which raise and send money to Israeli officials in charge of expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The magazine, citing tax records from 2001 to 2016, further revealed that a large network of US non-profits collects millions of dollars annually for Israeli settlements.
The report added that the famous US corporate foundations have also collectively given over $48,000 to the so-called "Friends of the Israel Defense Forces" NGO, which claims to have sent the money to Israeli military bases to be spent on various enrichment activities.
Earlier this month, Ir Amim, an Israeli NGO opposing Tel Aviv's settlement expansion activities, published a new map that illustrated an "accelerated, intensifying chain of new facts on the ground in the most historically contested and politically sensitive part of Jerusalem [al-Quds]: the Old City and adjacent ring of Palestinian neighborhoods," which help reinforcement of settlement plans.
© Ir AmimIr Amim’s latest map, “Settlement Ring around the Old City, 2019,” graphically illustrates the accelerated, intensifying chain of new facts on the ground in the most historically contested and politically sensitive part of Jerusalem: the Old City and adjacent ring of Palestinian neighborhoods.
Ir Amim said the supposed tourism and archaeology projects "assume a central role in Israeli settlement policy."
About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
The UN Security Council has condemned Israel's settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
Less than a month before US President Donald Trump took office, the United Nations Security Council in December 2016 adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem" al-Quds.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel's continued settlement expansion on Palestinian territories.
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