Ramallah, December 16 (RHC)-- Israeli authorities are planning to confiscate dozens of acres of private Palestinian land in the northwestern part of the occupied West Bank, as the Tel Aviv regime goes ahead with land expropriation and settlement construction policies in violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions.

Anti-settlement activist Mohammed Abu al-Sheikh was quoted by Wafa news agency as saying on Sunday that Israeli officials have drawn up a plan to expand a road near Alfei Menashe settlement, which lies south of the city of Qalqiliya, as a prelude to seizure of new Palestinian land for the purpose of settlement expansion.

Israeli Hebrew-language daily newspaper Israel Hayom reported on November 28 that Israeli officials were planning to construct thousands of new settler units near Jerusalem.   The report added that the so-called Israeli ministry of construction and housing was working on a project on the territory of the abandoned Qalandiya Airport in order to expand Atarot settlement, which lies north of Jerusalem.

It added that the plan included the construction of 11,000 settler units on an area of nearly 600 dunams (148.2 acres), and stretched from the non-operational regional airport to Qalandiya checkpoint.

Israel Hayom added that the land was confiscated in the early 1970s by the then ruling Israeli Labor Party.  The project includes digging a tunnel under the northernmost Palestinian neighborhood of Kafr Aqab in East Jerusalem al-Quds to connect the new neighborhood to the eastern flank of the occupied holy city.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.   The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.