A report about settlement activity in Palestinian territories has confirmed that 36 new settlement sites--settlement enclaves--have been created since Sharon became Prime Minister of Israel less than a year ago. 
	
	
 The annual report published by the National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Colonization in cooperation with the International Solidarity Establishment for Human Rights said that the nuclei of 36 new settlements were established from March 2001 to the end of November 2001 in various parts of the West Bank. 
	
	
 Also the report, whose findings were announced at a press conference yesterday, noted that three military positions were turned into civilian settlements and work had started on a new settlement called Giv'at Sal'it in the southern valleys region. 
	
	
 Taysir Khalid, member of the PLO Executive Committee and of the political bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, advocate Faris Abu-Hasan from the Solidarity Establishment, and Hasan Ayyub, director of the National Bureau for Defense of Land, took part in the conference. 
	
	
 Construction activities carried out in settlements during the period totaled 49. In addition, 102 mobile caravans were added to settlements and new settlement sites and more than 705 donums were added to existing settlements. The report also noted that work on bypass roads continued at a rate faster than that of the government of Barak who gave free rein to settlement activities. Sharon's government has embarked on building 10 bypass roads, some of which were approved by the previous government. The report estimated that building these roads threatens the bulldozing and destruction of more than 31,730 donums. 
	
	
 The report highlighted the damage caused to the agricultural sector as a result of settlement activity. It also noted that settlers and the occupation authorities pursue a comprehensive destructive policy on a wide scale vis-a-vis citizens' property to consolidate facts and settlement plans drawn up by the occupation government. 
	
	
 It said that about 487,093 fruit trees were uprooted during the second half of last year and 32,000 donums of agricultural land were bulldozed. The total losses of the agricultural sector amounted to $432 million according to Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture data. 
	
	
 In the Gaza Strip 1,051 donums were annexed to existing settlements, 32 new housing units were built, and work on 190 additional units was started. And 1,857 donums were bulldozed during the building of bypass roads in the strip. 
	
	
 Taysir Khalid explained that "the Palestinian intifadah has raised the settlement issue anew--one of the causes of the intifadah--in unprecedented force as a basic element and condition for reaching any solution." 
	
	
 He pointed to the allocations in the Sharon Government's budget for supporting and widening settlements and building new ones, despite the crisis and recession from which Israel's economy suffers. 
	
	
 He said: "At a time when Israel's economic growth rate declined to 1.5 percent and the budgets of the Ministry of Labor and Welfare and other ministries were cut, Sharon's government maintained its support for settlements and increased it to compensate for the growing exodus from settlements." 
	
	
 He stressed the need to concentrate on resisting settlement activity, settlers and their militias, and abstaining from subjecting this file to any discussion as a condition for halting the intensified settlement activities and removing existing settlements. He explained that the intifadah has proved that the settlement battle is not over. 
	
	
 He noted that the year since Sharon became Israel Prime Minister and his pursuit of a destructive, aggressive policy against the Palestinian people has "proved that the conflict with the Palestinian people who cling to their national rights cannot be settled by force." 
	
	
 Advocate Faris Abu-Hasan pointed to the violation of international laws represented in settlement activity and settlement building, and to Israel's continuing refusal to respond to international appeals and violation of relevant international laws. 
	
	
 He explained that settlement building constituted two grave violations of international law, especially the Geneva Convention, and pointed to international law provisions that forbid moving population of the occupying state to the occupied territories. 
	
	
 He said: "There are two grave violations, the first concerns settlement building and the transfer of settlers to the Palestinian territories on which tens of settlements have been built. The second is Israel's enacting of laws that facilitate expropriating Palestinian land and settlement activity, a matter that is considered among the war crimes." 
	
	
 He surveyed the attacks against unarmed citizens carried out by settlers, the legal protection and backing they are provided by Israeli governments, and the encouragement that this gives them to continue their assaults. He pointed out that there is an alternation of roles between settlers and the army in carrying out aggressions against Palestinians and terrorizing them. 
	
	
 He indicated that settlements have emerged as military bastions and bases for launching attacks against Palestinians during the intifadah. He explained that Palestinian population centers were used as human shields for the protection of settlements, and that about 90 percent of the bombardments to which Palestinian population centers were subjected originated in settlements. 
	
	
 He confirmed that 30 Palestinians were martyred at the hands of settlers, 60 persons were hit by settlers' bullets, while more than 77 others were injured in various assaults by settlers. 
	
	
 He stressed that since the outbreak of the intifadah in 1987, 18 percent of all Palestinians martyred were killed by settlers. 
	
	
 He noted that during the current intifadah settlers uprooted more than 6,580 fruit trees, destroyed more than 4,099 cultivated donums, while 85 houses, 90 commercial premises, more than 100 cars, and 17 ambulances were damaged as a result of attacks carried out by settlers. 
	
	
 He referred to the legal cover and protection settlers enjoy, and the encouragement this gives them to continue their aggressions. He explained that an Israeli court recently sentenced a Palestinian member of a group accused of opening fire in which no one was hurt to seven years imprisonment. While a settler who opened fire on a group of Palestinians wounding four of them was sentenced to four years imprisonment by an Israeli court.