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by IMEMC & Agencies

[Sunday, May 25, 2014] The Israeli Authorities announced the illegal annexation of 3,000 Dunams of privately owned Palestinian lands belonging to residents of the Salfit district, in central West Bank.

Jamal Tawfiq of the Land Defense Committee in Salfit told the Ma'an News Agency that the soldiers bulldozed and uprooted large areas in Thaher Sabha Mountain area, north of Kufur Ed-Deek village.

Tawfiq said the army officially informed the Palestinians the area has been declared a “closed military zone”, an order Israel enforces before the illegitimate confiscating of Palestinian lands.

The lands in question belong to the villagers of Kufur Ed-Deek, Sarta, Bedya and Broqeen.

Tawfiq said that Israel tried to confiscate the area in 1985, but the residents managed to obtain an Israeli court order against the confiscation in 1990, and the army today claimed it gained a court ruling allowing the theft of Palestinian lands in the area.

On Thursday morning [May 22, 2014], several Israeli military jeeps, accompanied by armored bulldozers, invaded Palestinians lands and olive orchards in Kufur Ed-Deek, west of the central West bank city of Salfit, bulldozed lands and uprooted several olive trees.

Member of the Kufur Ed-Deek Local Council, Mousa Qassoul, stated that several jeeps accompanied by two armored bulldozers invaded Thaher Soboh area, west of Kufur Ed-Deek, uprooted the trees and started the removal of an old, unused settlement road, the WAFA News Agency has reported.

Qassoul said the attack comes in an attempt to illegally confiscate the lands for settlement activities, as the army is preparing for a new illegal settlement outpost between the town and Bedya nearby village.