42 The Independent Commission for Human Rights - ICHR to issue needed licences, disrupting the implementation of some PEA projects. For example, financial allocations of the solar energy project in Bani Na’im could not be used. The Chinese government, donor of this US$ 50-million project, insisted that the Israeli side have a clear position. Later, Israel claimed that the land designated for the project installation was a nature reserve.55 1.1.14 Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission Citing military purposes, the Israeli occupying authorities confiscated large swathes of Palestinian lands. Israel enacted laws and regulations with the aim of regularising Israeli settlement outputs and providing support and protection to Israeli settlers, including on the Sabih Mount in the Beita town and in the Beit Dajan village. The Israeli authorities attempted to reconstruct some evacuated settlement outputs, such as Homesh in the Burqa village. Subsequently, local residents organised protests along the Nablus-Jenin road. While Palestinian protestors were assaulted by the IOF and settlers, adjacent road and villages were under lockdown. Towards the first third of June 2021, supported and facilitated by the Israeli government, Israeli settlers constructed a total of 40 new settlement units with full-scale infrastructure on the Sabih Mount. In response to this heightened settlement activity, a growing number of Palestinians took part in the confrontation. The site witnessed many popular rallies and violent clashes between Palestinians on one hand, and the IOF and settlers on the other. Together with popular resistance committees and citizens, the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) managed to obstructed attempts by Israeli settlers to construct nine new settlement outposts in the West Bank. These included settlement outposts on the debris of the Tayasir military camp and on lands belonging to the Palestinian communities of Khallet ad-Daliya, Ebal; Deir Sharaf; Qusra; As-Sawiya; Jabal ar-Ras, Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya; Al-‘Arma Mount; Sabih Mount; Kafr Qalil; Kafr Qaddum, and Khirbet Shehadeh, Deir Istiya. The key challenges below disrupted the CWRC staff functions and ability to implement plans in affected areas: • Intensive Israeli settlement plans and activities are tailor made to depopulate the Jordan Valley and eastern slopes of the West Bank in preparation to annex and convert these areas into a buffer zone. This is why the Israeli occupying authorities refuse to recognise, and implement home demolition and population transfer policies against, these Palestinian communities. • In the Jordan Valley and eastern slopes of the West Bank, population density has went down due to the coercive environment created by the Israeli policies, including seizure of water springs and agricultural land. Crippled by a multitude of racist laws, most villages and communities in Area C, particularly Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley and eastern slopes of the West Bank, suffer harsh living conditions. These are caused by Israeli policies of home demolitions, forced displacement, land grab, and low quality of social, economic, and livelihood basic services delivered to Palestinian citizens in these areas. • On the ground, the Israeli occupying authorities have accelerated policies, measures, and plans to demolish and forcibly transfer Palestinian communities from the Jordan Valley and Area C. 55 Letter from the PEA, January 2022. The Situation of Human Rights in Palestine