Land Research Center

Violation: expansion in “Ibei Hanachal”.

Location: Kisan /Bethlehem governorate.

Date: early April 2019.

Perpetrator: “Ibei Hanachal” settlers.

Victims: People of Kisan village.

Description:

LRC field team revealed discovering a small outpost in  Kissan village, but this time the outpost is built in old Palestinian architectural style, The building has ancient stones , retaining walls and domes, The occupation is falsifying history and trying to steal heritage and Judaize the area.

The Israeli occupation grabbed Palestinian lands and gave it to settlers on a silver platter. While on the other hand, Palestinians are not allowed to expand naturally on the lands that they inherited from their ancestors.

 expansion in “Ibei Hanachal”

In a previous report for LRC in 2015, the location contained an under construction house, today the area is crowded with colonial residential units, all of them look like old Palestinian houses.

Noteworthy, The illegal settler “Yusi” from “Ibei Hanachal” was the first to grab a land in the location, he constructed a house for himself and started raiding police dogs to protect the area from “Palestinians”.

Kisan is located between “Gosh Etzion” settlements cluster and the Dead Sea, which gave it a strategic importance.

Kisan[1] :

Located 18km south of Bethlehem, Kisan village is surrounded by Tuqu' (north), Sa'ir (west), the Dead Sea (east), Arab ar Rashayda/ Sa'ir/ Al Buweib (south). Kisan has a population of 560 people (till 2012). It has a total area of 133,278 dunums- 88,7 of which are built-up area. The Israeli occupation confiscated 2201 dunums of Kisan lands to build the following colonies:

Maale Amos which was built in 1981 and devoured 320dunums of Kisan. It is inhabited by 299 colonists.

Mizpe Shalem which was built in 1971 and confiscated 396 dunums. 193 colonists live in that colony.

Mizpe Shalem B which was built in 1980 and stole 58 dunums.

Ibei Hanachal outpost which confiscated 166 dunums of Kisan.

Israeli Bypass road number 90 devoured more than 1000 dunums.

According to Oslo Accords, 11% of Kisan is considered nature reserve while 40% is under Area B (PA is in charge of civil matters with Israel responsible for security). However, most of the village lands (49%) is under Area C (Israel maintains full security and administrative control). Here are the areas in dunums:

• Land considered natural preserve (24.480) dunums

• Area B (88.5) dunums

• Area C (108.455) dunums

[1] GIS-LRC

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