OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Ola Awad, the deputy-chairman of the Palestinian census authority, unveiled on Tuesday that number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank increased drastically over the past years that would have its geographical and demographic impact on the ground.
According to a report issued by the census, the Israeli settlements in the West Bank reached 144 by the end of 2009, at least 26 of them were constructed in the occupied city of Jerusalem.
Next to Jerusalem was the district of Ramallah and Al-Bireh where 24 Israeli settlements were established on usurped Palestinian lands, the report added.
According to the report, the Israeli settlers in the West Bank reached 517,774 by the end of 2009 compared to 500,670 in 2008 in growth ratio of 3.4%, adding that the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank doubled 40 times from 1972 to 2009.
Majority (52%) of the Israeli settlers dwelled in Jerusalem, and the rest were distributed in the Palestinian districts of Ramallah, Al-Bireh, Bethlehem, Salfit, and Tobas, which recorded the lowest number of settlers.
According to Awad, 87.9% of the settlers were living in “urban” settlements, while, the rest lives in “rural” settlements many of them fanatic religious groups.
Since it was occupied by Israel in 1967, the Palestinian city of Jerusalem witnessed harsh and well-planned Israeli measures to change the demographic and social structure in it to make it in favor of the Jews.
Many Palestinian homes were illegally demolished by Israeli bulldozers and tens of thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites were forced out of the city under false pretexts in addition to building the apartheid wall around it that isolated many Palestinian suburbs that, in the past, were part of the city.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
No comments:
Post a Comment