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views. People are encouraged to become settlers by tax breaks. Free water is given tosettlers in the fertile Jordan Valley. This is where a lot of the produce for the UK comesfrom and which we are boycotting.

• During 2010 the Israeli army confected 4,826 donums of Palestinian ownedland from various parts of the west Bank and east Jerusalem. A reports added that dur-ing 2010 the Israeli government had approved 16,479 homes in West Bank settlements,13,000 of those are already under constrictions the reported stated.

“Jerusalem complete and united is the capital of Israel”. This decree wasdeclared to have “no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of theGeneva Convention” by the UN Security Council in 1980.

The introduction of a permit regime in 1993 restricted access for West BankPalestinians ID holders to East Jerusalem. Restrictions were enhanced with theoutbreak of the second Intifada. West Bank villages that were once closelyconnected to East Jerusalem are now physically separated from the city.

Construction of the Barrier has made Palestinian access into EastJerusalem more difficult. The section of the Barrier within Jerusalemgovernorate measures 162 kilometers in length. Only five kilometers of itscompleted length runs along the Green Line. The remainder lies within theWest Bank. Whether the Barrier is viewed solely as a security measure or asa political step or a combination of both, its departure from the Green Line isplainly related to the existence of settlements.

Many of the residents live in an enclave isolated from East Jerusalem, withtheir only access via ‘Fabric of Life’ roads (see previous chapter).In total,approximately 25% of the 253,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalemhave been cut off from the city by the Barrier. They can now only reachJerusalem by crossing a checkpoint to access the services to which they areentitled as holders of Jerusalem ID cards.

Basic Facts• These settlements and outposts are inhabited by a population of

some 462,000 Israeli settlers. 191,000 Israelis are living in settlementsaround Jerusalem and a further 271,400 are further spread throughoutthe West Bank .

• The settler population has grown consistently between 4-6% per yearover the last two decades, a much higher rate of growth than Israelisociety as a whole (1.5%).

• Approximately 385,000 settlers in 80 settlements will be locatedbetween the Separation Wall and the Green Line if Israel holds toprojected plans.

• In 2008, amidst the ‘settlement freeze’ agreed upon in the Annapolisframework, tenders for new settlement building increased by 550% from2007.

• Actual settlement construction has increased by 30% since thelaunching of the new round of peace talks. Settlement building aroundJerusalem has increased by a factor of 38.

• A total of 9,000 further housing units have been approved in East

Jerusalem, and approximately 2,600 new housing units are beingbuilt east of the Separation Wall, comprising 55% of all settlementconstruction activity.

• Settlements are built on less than 3 percent of the area of the WestBank. However, due to the extensive network of settler roads andrestrictions on Palestinians accessing their own land, Israelisettlements dominate more than 40 percent of the West Bank.

• Roads have been constructed to link the settlements toIsrael. Palestinians are not permitted to use these roads.

• The most precious natural resource is water. Each Israeli settler gets1,450 cubic metres per annum, each Palestinian 83 cubic metres.

• Mainly, the settlements are NOT the work of people with extreme religious

ISRAELI COLONISATIO

The Palestinian Return Centre100h Crown House, North Circular Road, London NW10 7PN, United Kingdom

Tel:+44 (0) 2084530919 Fax: +44 (0) 2084530994

www.prc.org.uk e: info@prc.org.uk The Palestinian Return Centre

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“We have repeatedly documented the connection between settlements and the destruction of Pal-estinians’ homes, crops, agricultural lands, and livelihoods.” Israel’s policy of settling its civilianson occupied land violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and is considered a war crime, accordingto the statute of the International Criminal Court.

Approved Future Growth

Circles represent the numberof additional housing units thathave been approved by theIsraeli government for each WestBank settlement, according to ananalysis of government databy Yesh Din, an Israeli groupthat fights for the rights ofPalestinians in the occupiedterritories.

PhotoCourtesyof ARIJ

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ISRAELI COLONISATION

‘Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and toeconomic and social development [..and] have been established inbreach of international law.’-International Court of Justice Ruling, July 9, 2004

INTRODUCTION

Israeli settlers have built settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT)with the political, military, and financial support of the government. The settlementswere built for ideological, military and financial reasons. Today 38,3% of the land inthe West Bank is beyond reach for Palestinians for a variety of reasons, includingsettlements, settlement-related infrastructure etc. 9.3 percent of West Bank land is underthe municipal jurisdiction of the settlements .

Only a few months after the Six-Day War in 1967, the first Israeli settlement,Kfar Etzion, was established in the West Bank. From 1967 to mid-2010, Israelestablished 121 settlements in the West Bank. In 2005, 16 settlements in the GazaStrip, together with four settlements in the northern West Bank were evacuatedby Israel as part of the “Disengagement Plan”. Prior to the evacuation 7,595settlers controlled 38 percent of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Settler movementhas continued growing and expanding throughout the last few decades incontravention of international law and condemnation from the internationalcommunity. Settlement construction has been a constant feature of Israel’spolicy regardless of which party governs in Tel Aviv which means that settlementbuilding is not a policy of either the right or the left; it is the policy of Israel.

In addition, Jerusalem is surrounded by 12 settlements, considered by Israel asneighborhoods within the Jerusalem municipality. According to international law, theJerusalem neighborhoods on the east side of the Green Line, which until 1967 belongedto Jordan (“East Jerusalem”), are built on occupied territory.

There are approximately 100 additional settlements, referred to in the mediaas “outposts” that are unrecognized even under Israeli law. The term describesa relatively new, small settlement with a few residential structures, orcaravans. Often outposts are built on hilltops close to a recognized veteran settlement,although others have been established in more remote locations. These outposts fillin the space between official settlements and create big settlement blocks, which will

render future evacuation more complex. 60 percent of the outposts were establishedunder Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet in 2001

Settlements are in Contravention of International Law

Under international law, Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT),including East Jerusalem, are illegal. The illegality of Israeli settlements has beenrecognized by the international community including through resolutions of the United

Nations Security Council and General Assembly, the High Contracting Parties to the FourthGeneva Convention and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Fourth Geneva Convention

Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protectionof Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 12, 1949, states: “The OccupyingPower shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territoryit occupies” .

According to a Commentary produced by the International Committee of the RedCross (ICRC), this sub-article was intended “… to prevent a practice adoptedduring the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions oftheir own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or inorder, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsenedthe economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existenceas a race” .

A conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention concerning theapplication of international humanitarian law in the OPT was convened in July 1999 at therecommendation of the UN General Assembly (Resolution ES-10/6, 24 February 1999 ). Theconference participants (including 114 High Contracting Parties) reaffirmed the illegality ofsettlements .

International Court of JusticeIn 2004, the ICJ delivered an Advisory Opinion on the legal consequences ofthe Barrier being constructed in the West Bank, following a request from theUN General Assembly. In the context of this opinion, the ICJ concluded that the

Israeli settlements established in the oPt, including East Jerusalem, are in breachof international law. The majority opinion of the Court concluded that “theroute chosen by the wall gives expression in loco to the illegal measures takenby Israel with regard to Jerusalem and the settlements, as deplored by the SecurityCouncil”. The majority of justices (14 to one) concluded that the construction of theBarrier and its associated regime in the West Bank iscontrary to international law.

Humanitarian Impact of Settlements

The settlements have grave consequences for Palestinians. According to a UN

report, The Humanitarian Impact on Palestinians of Israeli Settlements andOther Infrastructure in the West Bank, shows that almost 40% of the West Bankis now taken up by Israeli infrastructure. It also demonstrates how roads linkingsettlements to Israel, in conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints androadblocks, have fragmented Palestinian communities from each other.

The deterioration of socio-economic conditions in the West Bank has beendetailed in regular OCHA and World Bank reports over recent years. These haveunderlined the fact that freedom of movement for Palestinians is crucial toimproving humanitarian conditions and reviving socio-economic life.

the consequences of settlements and related infrastructure on Palestinian life aresevere, and if current trends continue, socioeconomic conditions in the West Bank arelikely to worsen.

Despite the transfer of Israeli civiliansinto occupied Palestinian territory (OPT)being illegal under international law,the Israeli settler population in the WestBank settlements has continued to growsteadily by around 5.5% each year. In 2007,approximately 450,000 settlers live inthe West Bank, including East Jerusalem,alongside 2.4 million Palestinians.

More than 38% of the West Bank nowconsists of settlements, outposts, militarybases and closed military areas, Israeli declared nature reserves or other relatedinfrastructure that are off-limits or tightly controlled against Palestinians.

The West Bank has been dissected into dozens of enclaves by the settlements andrelated infrastructure. This fragmentation has negatively affected social and economiclife for the vast proportion of Palestinians

Colonising East Jerusalem

Settlements around Jerusalem have continued to grow vigorously since theoccupation. The construction of settler housing and infrastructure within EastJerusalem and surrounding areas created a new demographic reality on the groundto the detriment of Palestinians.

In 1980, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, passed legislation declaring that