Israel confirms intention to seize West Bank land

PanARMENIAN.Net - Israel confirmed on Thursday, January 21 it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation, Reuters reports.

In an email sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of Israel's Defense Ministry, said the political decision to seize the territory had already been taken and "the lands are in the final stages of being declared state lands."

The appropriation, first reported by Israel's Army Radio, covers 154 hectares (380 acres) in the Jordan Valley close to Jericho, an area where Israel already has many settlement farms built on land Palestinians seek for a state.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday denounced the seizure, which is the largest appropriation in the West Bank since August 2014.

"Settlement activities are a violation of international law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict," Ban said in a statement.

The land, already partly farmed by Jewish settlers in an area fully under Israeli civilian and military control, is situated near the northern tip of the Dead Sea. No Palestinians currently live there.

Palestinian officials denounced the seizure on Wednesday, with Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, calling it a violation of international law.

"Israel is stealing land specially in the Jordan Valley under the pretext it wants to annex it," she told Reuters. "This should be a reason for a real and effective intervention by the international community to end such a flagrant and grave aggression which kills all chances of peace."