As the Palestinian people continue to endure relentless aggression in Gaza and the West Bank, the Israeli occupation is pressing ahead with its settlement policies in the West Bank, in clear violation of international law and United Nations resolutions that affirm the illegality of settlements.
On Saturday, the council of the settlement of “Kiryat Arba” announced the establishment of a new settlement neighbourhood on the outskirts of the settlement, south of the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank — the first such move in decades.
According to Israel’s official broadcasting authority, ten families have already settled in the new neighbourhood, named “Aviad”, which has been built near the town of Bani Na’im, within the boundaries of the settlement.
The neighbourhood is strategically located to link Hebron with settlements south of the Hebron Hills, in a move designed to sever Palestinian geographic contiguity and connect settlement blocs to one another.
Such actions constitute, under international humanitarian law, a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory or altering its demographic composition. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also classifies these practices as war crimes.
The announcement coincides with preparations by the occupation’s security cabinet to discuss further escalatory measures, including the annexation of parts of the West Bank, the eviction of the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar east of Jerusalem, and the advancement of the “E1” plan aimed at linking Jerusalem with the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
These projects also undermine the legal basis for the establishment of an independent and geographically contiguous Palestinian state, in direct violation of the principle of peoples’ right to self-determination enshrined in United Nations charters.
This development comes against the backdrop of the ongoing genocide being committed by the occupation in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, which has claimed the lives of more than 63,000 people and injured over 159,000 others, the majority of them women and children, in addition to thousands of missing persons and hundreds of thousands displaced.
At the same time, Israeli occupation forces continue their military assaults in the West Bank, resulting in the killing of at least 1,016 Palestinians, the injury of nearly 7,000, and the arrest of more than 18,500.
The establishment of the new settlement neighbourhood south of Hebron is not a mere construction project; it is part of a systematic settlement policy designed to fragment the West Bank and impose a colonial reality by force, in flagrant violation of international law and amounting to an ongoing war crime against the Palestinian people and their land.
