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While the world remains fixated on the devastation in Gaza and escalating regional tensions, the Israeli government has quietly executed a “legal coup” in the occupied West Bank, drawing condemnation from Palestinians.
Late on Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet ratified a series of decisions pushed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz. The new measures, which aim to expand Israel’s power across the occupied West Bank, will make it easier to seize Palestinian land illegally.
“We are anchoring settlement as an inseparable part of Israel’s government policy,” said Katz.
Experts say it will fundamentally alter the civil and legal reality of the territory, removing what the Israeli ministers termed “legal obstacles” that have existed for decades against the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
The Palestinian presidency called the decision “dangerous” and an “open Israeli attempt to legalise settlement expansion” and land confiscation. President Mahmoud Abbas’s office called on the United States and the United Nations Security Council to intervene immediately.
On Monday, eight Muslim-majority countries denounced Israel for trying to impose “unlawful Israeli sovereignty” in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian officials and legal experts warn that this package effectively terminates the 1993 Oslo Accords, stripping the Palestinian Authority (PA) of its remaining civil powers and legislating the de facto annexation of the West Bank.
(Al Jazeera)The real estate war
At the heart of these decisions is a strategic assault on land ownership laws that have been in place since 1967, when Israel occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and subsequently annexed these territories.
The Israeli cabinet approved the cancellation of a Jordanian law that historically prohibited the sale of land in the West Bank to non-Arabs. Simultaneously, the government decided to lift the secrecy on land registry records in place since the Ottoman period.
According to Amir Daoud, director of documentation at the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, this move is designed to create an “open market” for settlers. By exposing the identities of Palestinian landowners in the registry, settlers and real estate companies can now target specific individuals for pressure, extortion, or entrapment to force land sales.
“This government puts settlement expansion at the centre of its policy,” Daoud told Al Jazeera Arabic. “By facilitating the leak of Palestinian land to settlers, they are adding a new layer of apartheid.”
The Yesha Council, a gathering of illegal settlements, celebrated the decision as the “most important in 58 years”, stating that the Israeli government is now declaring, in practice, that “the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people”.
Breaching Areas A and B
Perhaps the most aggressive shift in the new directives is the authorisation for Israeli forces to conduct enforcement and demolitions in Area A and B zones, which under the Oslo Accords, are supposed to be under Palestinian civil and security control.
Area C, which is under total Israeli control, constitutes 60 percent of the West Bank. More than 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in Area C and occupied East Jerusalem across more than 250 illegal settlements.
To bypass international law, Israel has introduced a new legal mechanism: the “Protection of Antiquities and Environment”.
“Israel has erased the distinctions between Areas A, B, and C,” Daoud noted, explaining that this policy was financially primed three years ago when the cabinet allocated 120 million shekels ($39m) to “protect Jewish heritage sites” in the West Bank.
Municipal apartheid
The decision also institutionalises a system of “municipal apartheid” in key Palestinian cities, removing them from PA jurisdiction.
- Hebron: Planning and construction powers have been stripped from the Palestinian municipality and transferred to the Israeli Civil Administration. A “separate municipal entity” will be created for the Jewish settlers in the heart of the city to manage their affairs independently, bypassing Palestinian mechanisms entirely.
- Rachel’s Tomb (Bethlehem): The site has been removed from the jurisdiction of the Bethlehem municipality and placed under direct Israeli administration for maintenance and services.
Adel Shadid, an expert on Israeli affairs, warned that these administrative changes have profound religious and political implications.
“The Ibrahimi Mosque is no longer treated as a Muslim holy site managed by the Palestinian Awqaf,” Shadid told Al Jazeera Arabic. “Its management has been transferred to the Jewish Religious Council in Kiryat Arba. Israel has effectively Judaized its identity by law, not just by force”.
In 2010, the Israeli government had already proclaimed the Ibrahimi Mosque located in Hebron as a “Jewish Heritage site”.
(Al Jazeera)Pre-empting Trump
The timing of this “legal overhaul” is not accidental. According to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Smotrich and Katz pushed to ratify these decisions immediately prior to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to the United States.
Analysts believe Israel’s far-right government is racing against time to establish irreversible “facts on the ground” before October elections for the Israeli parliament or Knesset, and amid fears that US President Donald Trump might shift his stance on annexation.
James Moran, a former adviser to the European Union, believes the intent is clear.
“Smotrich was quoted saying: ‘We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state,'” Moran told Al Jazeera Arabic from Brussels. “This decision shows there is absolutely no intention for a just solution”.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he is against the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state. He has worked to undermine the Oslo Accords that called for the so-called two-state solution. Several Western governments, including France and the United Kingdom, last year recognised Palestinian statehood. But they have done little to deter Israel from expanding illegal settlements on Palestinian lands – the biggest stumbling block in the realisation of a Palestinian state.
Moran argued that international condemnations are no longer sufficient. “It is time for sanctions,” he said, suggesting that the EU should consider suspending trade agreements with Israel, given that a third of Israel’s trade is with the bloc.
Violence unleashed
On the ground, the cabinet’s decisions were interpreted by the settler movement as a “green light” for total impunity.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent in Hebron, Montaser Nassar, reported an immediate spike in violence following the announcement. “What is happening on the ground is the true translation of these decisions,” Nassar said.
Within hours of the ratification:
- Settlers raided the Al-Rashaydeh Mosque east of Bethlehem, stealing its contents and causing severe damage.
- In Bani Naim, east of Hebron, settlers brutally beat an 80-year-old disabled Palestinian man.
- Demolition notices were handed to Palestinians in Berin (east of Hebron), while demolitions were carried out in Bedouin communities in the northern Jordan Valley.
Dalal Iriqat, a professor of diplomacy and conflict resolution, warned that the situation has moved beyond the point of political manoeuvring.
“We are witnessing the institutional and legal annexation of the West Bank,” Iriqat told Al Jazeera Arabic.
“Israel is imposing a reality of ‘Greater Israel’ and apartheid. If the international community does not move from statements to action, the situation on the ground will explode.”
