The Jerusalem Governorate said in a statement that "Israeli occupation forces demolished a farm belonging to Farouk Mustafa in the Rawabi al-Issawiya area near the town of al-Zaim, east of occupied Jerusalem, on the pretext of building without a permit."
Mustafa said in the statement that "the occupation forces stormed the farm accompanied by bulldozers," adding that they "began to demolish a 150-square-meter tin barn and a 100-square-meter agricultural shed."
"It also bulldozed the fence surrounding the approximately 8 dunams of land (one dunam equals 1,000 square meters), causing widespread destruction to the farm," according to Mustafa.
The governorate stated that "this crime comes within the context of the occupation's accelerating settlement policy to implement the E1 colonial plan," explaining that the plan aims to "empty Palestinian lands east of Jerusalem and annex them for the benefit of settlements, thus deepening the city's isolation from its Palestinian extension in the West Bank and undermining the chances of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state."
This project threatens approximately 7,000 Palestinians living in 22 communities in the Jerusalem Badia, who face the risk of forced displacement.
olive pickers
In a related development, Israeli occupation forces fired live bullets at olive pickers in the town of Kafr Ra'i, south of Jenin, on Monday.
The Palestinian News Agency, WAFA, reported that a number of settlers attacked farmers and olive pickers while they were harvesting olives on their lands, with the support of the occupation army, which opened live fire at them to force them to leave their lands.
During the annual olive harvest season, Palestinian lands are subjected to repeated attacks by settlers and the occupation army, preventing farmers from accessing their lands, causing significant material losses, and exacerbating their daily suffering.
land clearing
Earlier today, the Israeli occupation army bulldozed approximately 70 dunams of Palestinian agricultural land in the southern occupied West Bank to expand a settlement area.
Yousef Abu Maria, coordinator of the Popular Resistance Committees in the town of Beit Ummar, said, "Bulldozers belonging to the Israeli occupation authorities have begun razing agricultural land with an area estimated at 70 dunams (one dunam equals 1,000 square meters)."
He explained that the targeted lands "are from the town of Beit Ummar (south of Hebron Governorate), for the purpose of expanding the Beit al-Baraka settlement area," and stressed that "the bulldozing and confiscation come at the expense of Palestinian lands and farms."
According to the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission (governmental), since the beginning of 2025, Israel has issued 53 orders to seize Palestinian land for military purposes.
On the second anniversary of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Commission reported that Israeli authorities had seized 55,000 dunams and established 25 buffer zones around settlements over the course of two years.
Last August, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced approval for the construction of 3,401 settlement units near the Ma'ale Adumim settlement and 3,515 units in the surrounding area.
"The plan links Ma'ale Adumim to Jerusalem and cuts off Arab connections between Ramallah and Bethlehem," said Smotrich, who also holds a Defense Ministry position overseeing settlements.
The United Nations affirms that settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal and undermine the possibility of implementing a two-state solution (Palestinian and Israeli). For decades, the United Nations has called for their cessation, to no avail.
The Israeli human rights organization Peace Now previously described this settlement plan as a "fatal blow" to the two-state solution, as it would separate the northern West Bank from the southern one and isolate the city of Jerusalem.
The Palestinians cling to occupied Jerusalem as the capital of their desired state, based on international legitimacy resolutions that do not recognize Israel's occupation of the city in 1967, nor its annexation in 1980.
For decades, Israel has occupied Palestine and territories in Syria and Lebanon, refusing to withdraw from these territories and establish an independent Palestinian state with occupied Jerusalem as its capital, based on the pre-1967 borders.
