JENIN, (PIC)-- Apparently bowing to pressures from the Israeli military institution, the Israeli high court issued a ruling entitling the Israeli occupation authority to confiscate most of the land in the Palestinian village of Al-Aqaba that overlooks the Jordanian valley.

Palestinian villagers dwelling in the city accused the Israeli court of prejudice, affirming that the Israeli occupation army wants their land to use it for military purposes. 

The village is situated in a strategic location overlooking the Jordanian valley region near the West Bank city of Tobas.

Sami Sadek, the head of the village's municipal council, explained that the IOA presented a new structural scheme that sharply reduced the total area of the village from 3,500 dunums (1 dunum= 1000 sq meter) to 100 dunums only, spurring the villagers to file a protest with the high court against the said plan.

"The [Israeli] high court's decision wasn’t a judicial one, but rather it was a military ruling because it clearly approved the demands of the Israeli occupation army", underlined Sadek in an interview with the Quds Press.

He added that the 100 dunums that the court left for the village's inhabitants would accommodate five Palestinian families out of 73 families dwelling there although the total number of the Palestinian families who were living in the village was close to 1,000 families.

Moreover, Sadek pointed out that eight Palestinian villagers died and close to 50 others were wounded when IOF leftovers exploded next to them, asserting that the IOF troops were using the village for military training and exercises.

Sadek appealed to the PA institutions and international and regional human rights and legal institutions to stand up against the "arbitrary" decision of the court, and to exert all possible efforts to block it.

The Israeli new plan against the village coincides with the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) in 1948 when armed Zionist groups massacred many Palestinian families and forced hundreds of thousands of them out of their homes at gunpoint.