The Israeli occupation authorities announced on Sunday their decision to grab Palestinian land lots covering an area of 20 dunums in Khallet Hassan area, west of Salfit governorate, in the occupied West Bank.

Over recent years, Israeli occupation forces have escalated crackdowns, house demolitions, and land grab in Khallet Hassan in an attempt to force Palestinians out of the area in favor of illegal settlement expansion.

The land is to be seized under the pretext they are state property.

According to Israeli rights group Peace Now, there are 666,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in 145 illegal settlements and 140 outposts in the occupied West Bank and occupied Jerusalem.

In Early November, UN Special Rapporteurs characterized Israeli settlements as “the engine of the occupation”, and responsible for a wide range of human rights violations against the Palestinian people.

These include land confiscation, severe restrictions on freedom of movement, and racial and ethnic discrimination.

“Most seriously, the purpose of settler implantation – rupturing the relationship between a native people and its territory – is the denial of the right to self-determination, which is at the very core of modern human rights law,” they said.

The UN has repeatedly stated Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are a flagrant violation under international law and a presumptive war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).