West Bank: Israeli settlement orders Palestinian local to pay property tax

The council of a Jewish-only settlement in Hebron has ruled that a Palestinian citizen must pay up to £14.692 in property tax for his house and farmland, claiming it's located on land belonging to the settlement.

Abdul-Karim al-Jaabari must pay 88,200 shekels ($22,000) in Arnona (the Israeli term for local property tax), the Jewish-only settlement's council has ruled.

Al-Jaabari said the move was unprecedented in the occupied West Bank and was intended to force his family from their land, which is adjacent to the settlement.

"It is an unprecedented step regarding settlements in the West Bank, which is aiming to dismiss me and my family from our land," he said.

The home owner claimed settlers from Kiryat Arba have been attempting to expel him since 2001, according to a Ma'an News Agency report.

The Hebron-based activist group Youth Against Settlements denounced the demand, which was made in January, explaining it would set a "dangerous precedent".

"This is meant to give legal status to the illegal settlements which have been trying to claim legal custody over the lands under their control and the lands near these settlements," Issa Amro, the group's coordinator said in a statement.

"[It] raises alarms of danger of the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank," Amro added.

This comes less than a month after Israel published tenders to build 430 new settlement houses in the occupied West Bank, putting an end to the freeze on construction over the Green Line just weeks after it was announced.

84 new homes are expected to be built in the suburb of Kiryat Arba, according to the Terrestrial Jerusalem group, which mainly monitors the settlements in the occupied area of East Jerusalem.

The decision is part of Israel's wider plan to construct on occupied Palestinian land.

Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day war. Settlements built beyond the Green Line are illegal under international law.