Elham Asaad Buaras
Israel has sanctioned the largest land seizure in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, reported an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog on July 3.
According to Peace Now, authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometres (almost 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley, marking it as “the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo Accords.”
The recent land acquisition connects Israeli settlements along a critical corridor next to Jordan, jeopardising the future formation of a Palestinian state.
During the six-day war of 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank from Jordan. Since then, successive Israeli governments have sought to solidify control over the territory by declaring significant portions “state lands,” effectively prohibiting private Palestinian ownership.
The recent land seizure, approved late last month but publicised on July 3, follows the confiscation of 8 square kilometres in March and 2.6 square kilometres in February in the West Bank. Peace Now accuses Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, of prioritising the interests of a few settlers over the concerns of the international community and the Israeli people.
The group added, “Today, it is clear to everyone that a political settlement that establishes a Palestinian state alongside Israel is necessary to resolve this conflict. Still, the Israeli government chooses to make it difficult.”
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry called on Israel to reverse the largest illegal confiscation of Palestinian land since 1993. “Israel’s long-held policy of dispossession, land confiscation and establishing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, undermines our collective efforts to realize a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution to the conflict,” Norway’s Foreign Ministry said.
UN Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, called it “a step in the wrong direction,” adding that “the direction we want to be heading is to find a negotiated two-state solution.”
In a leaked recording obtained by Peace Now, Smotrich revealed during a conference for his National Religious Party-Religious Zionism that land confiscations in 2024 exceeded previous annual averages by about tenfold.
“This thing is mega-strategic, and we are investing a lot in it,” Smotrich said. “This is something that will change the map dramatically.”
Smotrich had instructed Israeli government ministries to prepare for 500,000 more Israeli settlers to move into the occupied West Bank in May 2023, saying that his “life’s mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state.”.
The Israeli military has quietly handed over significant legal powers in the West Bank to pro-settler civil servants working for Smotrich.
The Israel Defence Forces published an order on May 29 transferring responsibility for dozens of bylaws to officials within the Civil Administration, the Israeli governing body in the West Bank, under Smotrich.
Since October 7, settlers have intensified assaults, leading to Palestinian displacement to nearby towns, accompanied by an increase in army demolitions of homes. In late June, Israeli soldiers destroyed 11 homes and structures in Umm al-Kheir, a village in the occupied West Bank, displacing 50 people. In early July, they used live ammunition and tear gas against six Palestinian villagers, including four women and a five-year-old girl.
For academic and writer Abdaljawad Omar, the future of West Bank is nothing but grim.
“The Israeli political system that has financed and built the illegal settlements is now reckoning with the monster it has created, embodied in the rising fortunes of its fascist right-wing,” he told Anadolu.
“This right-wing not only seeks in the long term to take over most of the land in the West Bank and annex it, but also to cleanse the West Bank from Palestinians.”
Pisgat Ze’ev, an Israeli settlement deemed illegal in East Jerusalem, is the largest residential neighborhood in the city, with a population of over 50,000. Established by Israel as one of the five Ring Neighborhoods, Pisgat Ze’ev was built on land effectively annexed following the 1967 Six-Day War. (Credit: Vadim Akopyan/Wikimedia)
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