AhlulBayt News Agency: The Israeli occupation government has announced the signing of a major settlement expansion agreement to build thousands of new settlement units in the Adam settlement (Geva Binyamin), constructed on confiscated Palestinian land north of occupied Al-Quds—an escalation that reflects Israel’s intent to reshape the city’s demographic and geographic landscape.
According to the official announcement, the plan includes the construction of around 2,780 new settlement housing units, with an initial estimated cost of approximately 120 million shekels.
The project aims to transform the settlement from a medium-sized outpost into a large settlement city, further tightening the encirclement of nearby Palestinian towns and villages.
Sources indicated that the plan extends beyond housing construction and includes major settlement infrastructure, such as new settler-only roads that will seize additional Palestinian land and connect the settlement to exclusive networks serving settlers alone.
Reports noted that the first phase of the project has already begun, with about 500 settlement units being marketed, while construction and expansion will continue in stages to consolidate full Israeli control over the area.
The expansion of Adam settlement is part of Israel’s “Greater Al-Quds” strategy, which seeks to link settlement blocs together, effectively isolating occupied Al-Quds from its Palestinian surroundings in the West Bank.
The plan also aims to fragment Palestinian territory by separating the northern and southern West Bank, eliminating any future possibility of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.
Since 1967, occupied Al-Quds has faced systematic Judaization and forced “Israelization,” with Palestinians subjected to discriminatory policies designed to push them out through what rights groups call “silent displacement.”
These measures include home demolitions, revocation of residency IDs, and economic pressure through heavy municipal taxes such as Arnona, along with restrictions on Palestinian commercial activity.
Al-Quds-based sources stressed that the expansion of the Adam settlement is not merely a housing project but a geopolitical tool to entrench Israeli sovereignty over seized Palestinian land and institutionalize an apartheid system by allocating land and infrastructure exclusively to settlers.
Palestinian and human rights groups strongly condemned the plan, stressing that settlement construction in occupied territory constitutes a war crime under international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, and calling on the international community to intervene immediately to halt Israel’s settlement expansion in Al-Quds and across Area C of the West Bank.
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