'State Land' Law.. Israel's New Weapon to Swallow What Remains of West Bank Lands

Legal expert Hassan Breijieh revealed serious implications of the Israeli occupation authorities' decision to resume registering occupied West Bank lands under the name 'state land'. Breijieh explained that this measure directly targets Area C, where Tel Aviv seeks to seize all land for which its Palestinian owner does not possess official registered ownership documents, threatening vast areas of historical lands.

The 'Land Registration' unit, affiliated with what is called the Israeli Government Coordinator of Activities in the Territories (COGAT), has full oversight of this process. The new powers include issuing sales permits and collecting fees, a step aimed at completely excluding the Palestinian Authority from exercising its administrative and legal duties in these areas, thereby strengthening absolute Israeli control.

Breijieh pointed out that this announcement is not entirely new, but rather a renewal of a decision taken by the Israeli government in May 2025 to resume procedures that had been suspended since the 1967 occupation. Israel is exploiting legal loopholes resulting from the freezing of 'settlement' operations that existed during the Ottoman, British, and Jordanian eras, to pass current confiscation plans.

Under the 'Oslo II' agreement signed in 1995, the West Bank was divided into three areas, with Area C, which constitutes 61% of the area, under Israeli control. These arrangements were supposed to be temporary until 1999, but the occupation turned them into a permanent tool to prevent Palestinians from registering their lands and establishing their historical rights in them.

Palestinians face a major dilemma, as many own lands inherited through generations without official 'Tabu' deeds due to deliberate Israeli freezing. Farmers often rely on customary 'bills of sale' or tax receipts, documents that prove land disposal but are not recognized by the occupation today as definitive ownership deeds in its new procedures.

The registration process currently imposed by Israel requires complex and costly proofs, including inheritance records and cadastral maps that are difficult to obtain under occupation conditions. Observers believe that these complexities are intentional to drive Palestinians to despair of establishing their ownership, making it easier to later transfer these lands to the settlement project and settlers in a supposedly 'legal' manner.

The Palestinian expert linked this decision to the political orientations of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who seeks to strengthen control over the West Bank to win the favor of settlers. These steps come within a package of decisions recently approved by the Israeli government, aimed at bringing about a radical change in the legal and civil reality in the occupied territories.

Among the most prominent legal changes imposed by the occupation is the annulment of Jordanian law, which prevented the sale of land to Jews in the West Bank, in addition to lifting the secrecy of land records. Israel has also expanded its oversight and enforcement powers to include Areas A and B, in a clear and explicit violation of the agreements signed with the Palestinian side.

Human rights sources confirm that these measures violate international humanitarian law, particularly the 1907 Hague Convention, which obliges the occupying power to respect the laws in force in the occupied territory. The United Nations and the international community consider all settlement activities and land confiscation operations in the West Bank and Jerusalem illegal and an impediment to the peace process.

In a related context, Breijieh stressed that Israel is implementing what is called 'creeping annexation' of the West Bank, ignoring UN resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 2334. He also drew attention to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice issued in July 2024, which clearly affirmed that the continued Israeli presence in the Palestinian territories is an illegal act that must be ended.

For his part, Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz stated that land regulation is a 'security necessity' to ensure Israeli control, while Smotrich described the process as a 'settlement revolution'. These statements reflect the true intentions of the occupation to turn administrative procedures into political tools to impose full Israeli sovereignty over the heart of the West Bank.

Data from the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission indicate that the occupation has seized about 58,000 dunams since the start of the current war, under various pretexts, including 'state lands'. The head of the commission, Moayad Shaaban, affirmed that these measures aim to cancel all that the Palestinian government has achieved in the land settlement file in recent years and impose irreversible facts.

The Israeli government claims that this step comes in response to the Palestinian Authority's attempts to settle lands in Area C, claiming that it will end legal disputes. However, the reality indicates that the real goal is to settle 15% of the area for the Zionist project by 2030, according to Hebrew press reports.

This 'creeping annexation' represents an existential threat to the possibility of establishing a geographically contiguous Palestinian state, as Palestinian villages and cities are fragmented by settlement blocs registered as 'state lands'. Popular steadfastness and adherence to the land remain the last line of defense against these plans that attempt to legitimize the looting of Palestinian resources and rights with internationally invalid administrative decisions.

What is happening is the dispossession of land from Palestinians and its registration in the name of the state, and then its transfer to settlers, which poses a threat to most of the West Bank lands.