The Palestinian Authority is taking advantage of the war to continue building a new city in the Ha-Masrek nature reserve atop the Judean Desert in eastern Gush Etzion. In recent weeks, a new vacation resort complex was built in the reserve. Head of the Gush Etzion Council Yaron Rosenthal: “This serious failure is a security threat to the State of Israel, wake up!”
The new city in the reserve is being built at a fast pace in order to create facts on the ground and to make enforcement more difficult, despite the explicit prohibition to build in that area following the Oslo Accords. The move by the Palestinian Authority is taking place without any intervention by the Israeli enforcement agencies. This is part of the Fayyad plan to take over lands in Judea and Samaria and place a chokehold on Israeli communities in the region.
Another step city planners are now taking is the construction of a B&B complex for Arab tourism. The project and the roads leading to it are being built at record speed in order to continue establishing facts on the ground that will be very difficult to destroy in the future. They are carrying this out in order to take advantage of the security force’s severe lack of manpower in recent months, due to the war.
The nature reserve is located in the eastern part of Gush Etzion near Tekoa, Kfar Eldad and Nokdim. The construction of the city is causing irreparable damage to the Judean desert and is a serious security risk. Beyond that, the city is already making it difficult to access the desert, which will worsen as construction continues. The new city will isolate the eastern Gush Etzion communities, which will become an enclave between Arab cities and villages.
Mayor of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, Yaron Rosenthal stated, “While some of us have become aware of the ‘conceptzia’ in Gaza, burying our hands in the sand when it comes to Judea and Samaria continues. If we don’t stop the rampant illegal construction in the Ha-Masrek Reserve (accords reserve) today, in a few years, we will be dealing with a major security threat. This is a serious failure and security threat to the State of Israel, wake up!”
