Regavim published a special warning criticizing the illegal construction by the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the borders of Judea and Samaria.
Tamar Sikorel, Regavim spokeswoman, discussed the threat that has been brewing for years along the Green Line. without any binding response from Israel: “Regavim maps the areas of Judea and Samaria, as well as the Negev. Now, following the Gaza war and the explosion of the conspiracy in the Gaza Strip, we have decided to undertake a special inspection operation of what is happening on the seam line. We have mapped the entire length of the fence from the north of the Jordan Valley to the south of the Dead Sea, a distance of about three hundred kilometers, up to one to four kilometers from the fence. This of course is Area C, an area that is completely controlled by Israel and is supposed to be sterile, guarding the security of the cities in the center, the coastal plain, and Ben Gurion airport.”
Sikorel continued: “The data we found is frightening and threatening, telling an explicit and clear story: The PA has built 18,899 illegal structures along this line that are sitting right on the fence - for example, in the IDF training area in the Samaria region, whose proximity to Rosh Ha’ayin is ridiculous, and overlooks Benny Gantz’s personal balcony.”
“This has been clear to us and to all residents of Judea and Samaria for many years. Now it will explode after October 7th. If the distance between Gaza and Ofakim is 25 kilometers, here it is barely 5 kilometers," she said, noting that this construction of almost twenty thousand buildings is in addition to the construction of about 100,000 buildings further into the area. She stressed that the focus in this mapping effort was made precisely around the Green Line, in order to understand the threat this construction poses to the settlements surrounding Judea and Samaria.
“The statement we are trying to hone now is that it is true that there is illegal construction that needs to be fought against, but there is illegal construction that also poses a real danger; a ticking bomb. It does not depend on whether we withdraw from there or not. This involves a moment's decision by the Palestinian Authority, as a leading terrorist organization, to turn its guns on the center of the country. Maybe it's time to wake up here as well and realize that abandoning this area could lead to disaster, as we saw in the Gaza Strip.”
Sikorel called on each individual to “open our eyes and ears” and pointed out that the PA itself has been saying this publicly for years. “They themselves have been claiming it. They have a minister for fence and settlement affairs. They have entire departments of planning and construction, and they invest all their energies in terrorism and taking over territory, with their goal being the establishment of a terrorist state in the heart of Israel. They say it all the time and at every opportunity. For them it is not the borders of '67, but ‘from the river to the sea.’ They repeat it everywhere, and the funds that flow from all over the world go towards this initiative.”
“We would be happy to think and imagine that this is sporadic construction by a Bedouin who has no place to build, but that is not the case. A zoom-out examination of the map shows that all these small sites contain a full story, connections between areas A and B, through Area C, blocking roads, suffocating local Jewish communities, etc. There is a deliberate plan that has been growing here over the years.”
Sikorel added that Regavim has been showing the data to the decision-makers, but in general it is difficult to draw their attention to these issues and the answer that they receive is that this is random construction of those who have no other place to live.
“In the meantime, we do not feel a dramatic change in the attitudes of the heads of the security forces and the Israeli leadership, or in their understanding of the situation. It seems that they are still clinging to the old concepts that want to see the Palestinians as partners and the existing reality as normal, and do not consider it in terms of terrorism and of taking over the territory,” she concluded.
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