Israeli bulldozers Tuesday morning razed a large tract of Palestinian land, located to the south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, in order to expand the nearby illegal Israeli colonial settlements.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said that settlers escorted bulldozers to al-Khafafish area, classified as Basin 13, which belongs to the Nablus-district villagers of Jalud, for the expansion of the nearby colonial settlements of Shilo and Shivot Rahil.

Daghlas added that land was leveled despite an Israeli court ruling upholding a halt on the expansion of Shivot Rahil colonial settlement.

He went on to say that Israeli bulldozers were proceeding with leveling Palestinian farmlands, classified as Basin 12, which belongs to the villagers of Jalud, to build 175 new settler units in the nearby settlement of Shilo.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces today seized an agricultural tractor in the area of al-Ras al-Ahmar, to the south of the occupied West Bank city of Tubas.

There are almost 834,000 Israeli settlers living in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The number of settlers has almost tripled since the Oslo Accords of 1993, when settlers’ number estimated 252,000. Illegal settlements have leapt from 144 to 515 in that time.

Israel’s nation-state law, passed in July 2018, enshrines Jewish supremacy, and states that building and strengthening the colonial settlements is a “national interest.”