The Palestine Liberation Organization warned on Saturday of an Israeli settlement plan that it said aims to separate the northern occupied West Bank from its center and turn Palestinian towns into isolated enclaves.
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This was stated in a weekly report by the National Bureau for Defending the Land and Resisting Settlement, which is affiliated with the organization.
The stated that the Council of Settlements in the northern West Bank, known in Israel as the “Shomron Settlements Council,” published, in coordination with the so-called “Farmers Union” of settlements, maps of a settlement bloc that is being established, extending from east to west between the northern and central West Bank.
He explained that the completion of the “transverse strip” would sever the geographical connection between the northern and central parts of the West Bank, turning Palestinian cities and villages in the designated area into “isolated and besieged enclaves.”
He stated that the plan would impose a tight settlement ring around the governorates of Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya and Salfit (north), “undermining any possibility of urban expansion or Palestinian economic and agricultural development in the future.”
According to the report, this plan is prepared and implemented by an integrated system that combines the Israeli government's political level with settlement movements and schools operating on the ground.
The report stated that the Israeli government level, represented by the Security Cabinet, approved the pillars of the plan through a series of decisions taken in 3 separate sessions, while the regional and local councils of the settlements are responsible for preparing the detailed structural maps.
The report indicated that the plan is not presented in cabinet meetings under the name “the cross strip,” but rather is passed as separate packages and clauses to legitimize the outposts and expand the settlements that comprise it, in order to ensure their geographical integration within the official settlement system.
During the first half of 2026, the relevant Israeli authorities studied 113 settlement structural plans in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, to establish more than 12,435 settlement units, while the Israeli government approved the establishment of 34 settlements, according to a previous report by the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission (governmental).
According to official Palestinian data, approximately 750,000 settlers reside in 194 settlements and 400 outposts in the occupied West Bank , including occupied East Jerusalem.
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