
The Palestinian Authority is accelerating its construction of a new city in the Ha-Masrek Nature Reserve in the Judean Mountains. In the last few weeks, a new resort complex was built in the reserve.
The new city in the reserve is being built at a fast pace to create facts on the ground and to make law enforcement more difficult, despite the explicit prohibition against building there following the Oslo Accords. The enforcement agencies do not operate in the field.
Another step that the city planners are now taking is the construction of a B&B complex for Palestinian Arab tourism. The project and the roads to it are being built at record speed in order to continue establishing facts on the ground in a way that will be very difficult to demolish in the future.
The reserve is located in the eastern part of Gush Etzion near Tekoa, Nokdim, and Kfar Eldad. The new city is causing serious environmental damage to the reserve and makes it more difficult to access the Judean Desert.
In Gush Etzion, there is concern that the city will isolate several Jewish communities in the area.
Gush Etzion Regional Council Head Yaron Rosenthal said, "While some of us have become aware of the 'conceptzia' in Gaza, the burying our heads in the sand with regard to Judea and Samaria continues. If we do not stop the rampant illegal construction in the Ha-Masrek Reserve today, in a few years we will be dealing with one of the most serious security incidents here. This serious failure is a security risk for the State of Israel, wake up."