PA official: Israel to confiscate Nablus land for bypass road

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Israeli authorities will confiscate 800 acres of land west of Nablus to build a bypass road, a PA official said Tuesday.

Ghassan Doughlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an that Israeli forces handed confiscation orders to several farmers in the villages of Beit Iba, al-Naqura, Zawatta and Ijnisinya on Tuesday.

Doughlas called on the international community to intervene to stop the Israeli policy of land confiscation in the West Bank. The PA official also called for an end to settler attacks against Palestinian communities.

Settler violence against Palestinians is systematic in the occupied West Bank but the perpetrators are rarely prosecuted by Israel.