New Israeli measures for the occupied West Bank, announced over the weekend, are expected to accelerate the territory’s annexation, ease land purchases by settlers and push Palestinians into increasingly isolated enclaves.
The full text of the latest decisions remains classified, but some details were disclosed in a statement. While it was unclear when the new rules would take effect, they do not require further approval.
Below are key changes that are expected to reshape the West Bank.
– Easy land purchases by settlers? –
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the security cabinet who himself lives in a settlement, said the moves would make it easy for settlers to purchase land in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Until now, land acquisitions for settlers were typically carried out through intermediary companies.
The new measures repeal a decades-old law that barred Jews from directly purchasing land in the West Bank.
“This will allow Jews to purchase land in Judea and Samaria exactly as they do in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem,” Smotrich said.
Under the new rules, Israelis or companies registered in their name will no longer require a special permit from the state to complete land transactions.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, said the permit system had been intended “to prevent forgeries and to curb settlers’ real-estate initiatives that contradict government policy”.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live among three million Palestinians in the West Bank.
Members of Netanyahu’s coalition like Smotrich or fellow far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir are ardent supporters of the settlement movement, and have long advocated annexing the West Bank.
“Smotrich, Ben Gvir and the rest of them have been telling us that this is their policy,” Palestinian political scientist Ali Jarbawi told AFP.
“Now it has come to fruition”.
The current Israeli government has fast-tracked settlement expansion, approving a record 52 settlements in 2025.
– Palestinians to live in enclaves? –
The measures will also increase Israel’s control in parts of the West Bank where the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority exercises power.
Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the West Bank was divided into areas A, B, and C — under Palestinian, mixed and Israeli governance respectively.
According to Smotrich, the new measures will extend greater Israeli authority into A and B “with regard to water offences, damage to archaeological sites, and environmental hazards that pollute the entire region”.
Palestinian experts warn the initiatives would displace Palestinians living near archeological sites, landfills or springs, with Jarbawi saying Israel wants “to drive Palestinians into small pieces of land, basically, their major cities, enclaves”.
Yonatan Mizrachi of Peace Now said the steps would further weaken the Palestinian Authority — established under the Oslo Accords as an interim governing body pending the creation of a Palestinian state — accusing Israel of “advancing annexation”.
– More Israeli control over religious sites? –
The measures expand Israeli control over two major religious sites in the southern West Bank: Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, both holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
In Hebron, the West Bank’s largest Palestinian city, municipal bylaws will be amended to transfer building-permit authority in areas around the Cave of the Patriarchs, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, to COGAT, Israel’s military body overseeing civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
Asma al-Sharbati, Hebron’s deputy mayor, called the move “the most dangerous ongoing Israeli trend”, adding settlement expansion was happening at a “rapid pace”.
Rachel’s Tomb, currently administered by the Bethlehem municipality, will similarly be placed under a newly created Israeli authority.
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