Israeli occupation government approves largest land seizure in West Bank since 1967

OCCUPIED QUDS, Feb. 15 (YPA) – The Israeli government approved on Sunday the largest land seizure in the West Bank since 1967, in a move described as a legal prelude to “de facto annexation.”

The decision targets hundreds of thousands of dunams, with a specific focus on the strategically vital Jordan Valley.

Hebrew media reports, including “Yedioth Ahronoth” and “Channel 12,” revealed unprecedented political and administrative dimensions to this decision, including:
– Granting the Israeli Ministry of Justice the power to register land instead of the “Civil Administration,” a shift that reinforces the trajectory toward legal annexation.
– Commencing procedures to register lands classified as “state lands” or “communal lands” (masha’a) under the names of Israeli occupation authorities.
– Allocating specialized budgets and judicial frameworks for the Land Registry Department to initiate a comprehensive settlement process to serve settlement expansion and military purposes.

For his part, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the move as an “appropriate response” to what he characterized as unilateral steps taken by the Palestinian Authority regarding land registration over the past years.

Observers believe this decision effectively ends decades of the legal status quo, placing vast areas of the West Bank under direct Israeli sovereignty and undermining the prospects for a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.

YPA