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Ramallah- Once again, the Israeli occupation creates political steps towards the actual annexation of the West Bank lands and dominating most of its area, and this time from the gateway to the “land settlement” appeal that started in the Jordanian era, and stopped with its occupation in 1967.
Official circles and Palestinian specialists have warned of the consequences of the ratification of the Israeli Israeli mini cabinet, known as the “cabinet” – last Sunday – to resume the registration of land ownership in the region “C” from the occupied West Bank, which is under full Israeli control and constitutes about 61% of its area.
The Oslo-2 1995 agreement divided the West Bank lands to “A” and constitutes 18% and is fully under Palestinian control, “B” and constitutes 21% and is under Israeli civil and security control, and the remaining percentage “C” is under Israeli control.
By resuming land registration, the “Land Registration Unit” – which is one of the civil administration departments and the occupation government arm in the West Bank for Civil Affairs – will undertake the process of registration of land ownership in the regions of “C” amid fears of the settlers’ rushing to register them with their names.
What does the settlement mean?
The “settlement” means the abbreviation of the land registration process, and more broadly “the settlement of all issues and differences related to any right to behave or the right to possess in the land and water or the right to benefit in it or any rights related to it and subject to registration, and the settlement of lands and water addresses all people, bodies and associations who have the right to act or the right to possess or the right to benefit in the land and water, whether this right is recognized or disputed by it, based on a settlement law Land and Water No. 40 of 1952 “according to the Palestinian Settlement Authority.
According to the Oslo Agreement, the Palestinian Authority is in charge of the settlements in regions A and B. Done District C. This is done through the settlement and land authority authority that was formed later in accordance with laws issued by the President of the Palestinian Authority.
According to a report of the Palestinian Territories Authority, until 2023, 58% of the total area of the West Bank, amounting to 5.7 million dunums (dunum equals a thousand square meters).
The danger in the Israeli decision – according to specialists – lies in stopping the authority about the settlements it has been taking place for years in the “C” region, where the occupation authorities have repeatedly declared their lack of recognition.
The last decision also came to force the Palestinians to confront a private department that follows the Israeli army in the West Bank to carry out the settlement and even licensing houses, which entails the domination of the occupation over the broader areas, which the Palestinians cannot document its ownership even though it has become inheritance.
Looking at the absence of the settlement for many years, large areas of the West Bank lands are either registered with the names of people who died and have hundreds of heirs or not already registered.
The Foreign Ministry “warns of the consequences of the occupation’s approval to” settle the lands “on the opportunity to implement the two -state solution
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Warns of the Con Sequences of the Occupation’s Approval of the “Land Settlement” on the Prospects of Implementing the Two-State Solution. pic.twitter.com/c9xinruhys
– State of Palestine – MFA 🇵🇸🇵🇸 (@pmofa) May 13, 2025
Palestinian warning
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates warned – in a statement of Al -Jazeera Net, a copy of it – of the consequences of the Cabinet approval of the opportunity to implement the two -state solution, considering the approval to resume the implementation of the settlement “as an extension of the war of extermination and displacement against our people, and a repeated disregard for international legitimacy and its decisions and the international consensus that has a two -state solution.”
She added that “the failure to implement the United Nations resolutions on the Palestinian issue and that advocate to stop the war of genocide, encourages the occupation to persist in its crimes and violations aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause.”
On the other hand, the head of the Palestinian National Council, Rouhouh Fattouh, considered – in a statement – the resumption of the settlement process “a dangerous step aimed at consolidating illegal settlements and expanding Israeli control over the Palestinian territories.”
He added that the move comes within the plan of the Israeli Finance Minister in Salafel Smotrich to “Judaize the land and expel the Palestinians from their villages and their country in favor of establishing pastoral settlements.”
According to the statement of the head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Authority, Moayad Shaban, to the official Voice of Palestine Radio, “Jordanian settlement works before 1967 included 34% of the total land in the West Bank, and more than 60% remained ended.”
He referred to “actual sovereignty of the occupation on 70% of the 60% that were not settled, before the cabinet decision was issued.
Subjugation
For his part, the Popular Labor Officer of the Wall Authority, Abdullah Abu Rahma – to Al -Jazeera Net – says that the decision of the cabinet “a step from a series of steps that flow into the category of imposing sovereignty and complete control on the lands, as 60% (region C) from the area of the West Bank is actually subject to its control and threatened with the settlement and registration work in favor of settlement.”
Abu Rahma added that the years of the occupation witnessed a series of procedures and orders with various names aimed at placing the hand on the lands “in an explicit violation of all international laws and international humanitarian law.”
He said that the settlement operations threaten the expropriation of Palestinians to their land, noting that all the records of land since the era of the British Mandate are in the hands of the occupation, which stopped its registration operations, which began during the era of Jordan (1948-1967).
He said that what is required is “a Palestinian international move at the legal and political levels to confront the decision and frustrate it” in addition to the popular activities.
New old attempts
“The issue of the settlement and the attempt to establish land ownership of the Israelis is new,” a land and settlement expert, Hassan Brigaga, told Al -Jazeera Net.
He added that what happened on Sunday “wrapped the judicial advisor by transferring him to the Ministerial Council to take approval, but this also requires a set of legal procedures before it comes into effect.”
He pointed out that the authentication of the cabinet comes as part of a deal to satisfy the extremist Finance Minister Smotrich “, but in the end 67 Palestinians are under Israeli occupation, and there is a fatwa from the International Court of Justice that the settlement of settlement and the necessity of ending the occupation, in addition to Security Council Resolution 2334, which confirms that settlement is illegal.”
On July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice considered that the continuation of the existence of the State of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory “illegal”, adding that the Palestinians have the “right to self -determination” and that “Israeli settlements based on the occupied territories must be evacuated.”
In December 2016, the Security Council issued its decision No. 2334, which provides for the illegitimacy of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, including East Jerusalem.
The land and settlement expert pointed to the importance of the Palestinian move to the International Criminal Court and a complaint against Israel.