WEST BANK: Workers, under the protection of Israeli forces, have begun clearing and leveling land in the village of Faqqu’a, northeast of Jenin, to prepare the site for a new settlement outpost, Palestinian officials said.
Barakat Al-Amri, head of the village council, said the work followed the construction of a military access road linking the site to the main road between Faqqu’a and the neighboring village of Arabuna, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Although no new land seizure orders have been issued, he warned that the outpost would separate the two villages and restrict hundreds of Palestinian residents from reaching farmland along the barrier, where access is already tightly controlled.
The new outpost was being built on land adjacent to Israel’s separation barrier using land previously seized under military orders issued in 2008, Al-Amri said.
Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, Israeli forces converted four Palestinian homes into temporary military positions in the village of Tal, southwest of Nablus, WAFA reported.
Troops also carried out operations in the area between the neighboring towns of Sarra and Tal amid widespread raids and detentions across the West Bank following a July 24 clash between settlers and villagers that killed four Palestinians and two Israelis in Tal.
The raids also reached the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, where dozens of Palestinians were detained. Israeli forces conducted field interrogations after converting the town's stadium into a temporary military post, according to WAFA.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on either operation.
The developments come amid continued expansion of Israeli settlement activity across the occupied West Bank, despite repeated international criticism that settlements undermine the prospects of a negotiated two-state solution.
Under international law, Israeli settlements in territory occupied since 1967 are widely regarded as illegal, a position Israel disputes.
Settlement outposts, which are established without formal authorization under Israeli law, have expanded rapidly in recent years, with Israeli rights group Peace Now documenting a growing number of new outposts, including in areas previously administered under the Oslo Accords.
The organization said many outposts later receive state backing or are retroactively legalized.
The UN has also warned that the establishment of new outposts has been accompanied by increased settler attacks, restrictions on Palestinian movement and access to farmland, and the displacement of rural communities.
More than 2,300 Palestinians have been displaced across the West Bank this year due to settler attacks and related access restrictions, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
