OCCUPIED WEST BANK — Israel has approved, for the first time since 1967, the registration of land in the occupied West Bank as “state property”, a move that will facilitate the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians, violate international law, and “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
The proposal was submitted by the Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, the Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, and Israel Katz, the Defence Minister, and was approved on Sunday.
The measure is expected to formalize Israeli control over extensive areas of Palestinian land, much of which has remained unregistered since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.
It would allow Israel to legalize the confiscation of unregistered, or so-called abandoned, land by reclassifying it as “state land”.
In 1968, Israeli occupation authorities suspended a Jordanian-led land registration process, effectively preventing Palestinians from formally recording ownership of their property.
In a joint statement, Katz, Smotrich and Levin described the decision as “an appropriate response to illegal settlement measures being pushed by the Palestinian Authority in Area C in violation of the law and agreements”.
They said the measure “will allow for a transparent and in-depth examination of rights, end legal disputes, and enable the development of infrastructure and the organised marketing of land”.
Katz called the decision an “essential security and governance measure designed to ensure control, enforcement and full freedom of action for the state of Israel in the area”.
“We are continuing the settlement revolution to control all our lands,” Smotrich said
The decision follows the approval last week of a series of measures advanced by Smotrich and Katz aimed at facilitating Israeli ownership of Palestinian land in the West Bank. The sweeping changes expand Israel’s civil control in Areas A and B – where all major Palestinian cities and towns are located – which since the Oslo Accords have officially been under Palestinian Authority (PA) jurisdiction.
Smotrich said in a statement that the measures “fundamentally change the legal and civic reality” in the West Bank and “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.
While Israel has increased the confiscation of Palestinian land through military orders, with the activity reaching record levels in 2025, the new move gives Israel a legal avenue that “systemati[ses] the dispossession of Palestinian land to further Israeli settlement expansion and cement the apartheid regime”, Bimkom, an Israeli human rights organization that focuses on land and housing rights, said in a statement.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement group, also said the decision “effectively amounting to an Israeli takeover of approximately 83% of Area C (about 50% of the West Bank).”
“This move is very dramatic and allows the state to gain control of almost all of Area C,” said Hagit Ofran, the director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch programme, adding the process likely amounts to a “mega land grab” from Palestinians.
“Palestinians will be sent to prove ownership in a way that they will never be able to do,” Ofran told The Associated Press news agency. “And this way, Israel might take over 83 percent of the Area C, which is about half of the West Bank.”
The registration process could start as soon as this year, she said. — QNN
