Israel's largest land grab since Oslo sparks fears of annexation

Israel has approved the largest seizure of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, igniting fears that it is inching closer to complete annexation of the Palestinian territory under the cover of war.

The declaration of 12.7 square kilometres (almost 5 miles) of the Jordan Valley as state land was signed on 25 June 2024 but only made public last week.

According to Israeli settlement watchdog, Peace Now, Israel has declared more than 23 kilometres of the West Bank as state land in the last seven months, making 2024 a peak year for land theft in the occupied territory.

This recent declaration is the largest swath of land seized by Israel since the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace agreement between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. 

“Since and even before Oslo, the world has been very permissive towards Israeli settlement expansion,” Palestinian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu told The New Arab.

“And in the aftermath of October 7th, they completely turned a blind eye to it. It's yet another policy of normalising this occupation,” Buttu added. 

State land refers to an area designated as public land registered in the state’s name. Given the West Bank is occupied, the occupier (Israel) is then responsible for managing the area declared as state land for the public’s benefit.

Under international law, the occupier can’t confiscate land for the occupying people, so, as a loophole, Israel declares occupied areas as state land to advance settlement building on Palestinian territory.

To designate an area, Israel relies on a rather manipulative interpretation of an Ottoman-empire-era law dictating that if an area isn’t cultivated for several consecutive years it becomes state land. 

“It's much easier to expel Palestinian communities from state land,” Yonatan Mizrahi, head of Peace Now’s settlement watch team, told TNA. 

This is because the land is now state property - eliminating Palestinian ownership. Making private land public, the state can then advance settlement plans on the land in its control or assist settlers in purchasing plots as part of a free-market system. 

Ultimately, Mizrahi noted, this land grab is Israel’s way of hinting it’s preparing the area for settlement building and expansion.

Annexation in the works 

This land seizure was the first declaration of state land made under Hillel Roth’s authority, the civilian deputy in Israel’s Civil Administration, the military body overseeing the West Bank.

With Roth’s recent appointment, management of civilian life in the West Bank was transferred to him from the military, and he is subordinate to far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich. Analysts say this switch in control (from military to civilian hands) means Israel is formally annexing the West Bank.

Describing the transfer of power as “mega-strategic”, Smotrich told participants at a recent conference for his Religious Zionist party that the change in authority is designed to accelerate state land declarations and settlement building.

“This is something that will change the map dramatically. […the declarations we will make this year] are roughly ten times the average in previous years, I estimate that by the end of the year between 10,000 and 15,000 additional dunams [kilometres] will be declared [as state lands],” Smotrich said. 

In addition to settlement expansion, the land seizure has another sinister aim.

“Israel has noticed that many countries are recognising Palestine, so they have become afraid that they might, one day, be forced to accept the Palestinian state,” Younes Arar, with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, said.

“Therefore, they’re in a race with time to create as many facts on the ground as they can.” Since Israel launched a war on Gaza in October 2023, eight countries have recognised Palestinian statehood. 

The area of land seized is also of strategic importance, Mizrahi explained. 

“Since the 1960s, Israel has treated the Jordan Valley as a buffer zone to prevent connection between Jordan and Palestine,” Mizrahi said. 

Following Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967, then-Labour minister, Yigal Allon, devised a plan to annex the Jordan Valley as a way to boost Israeli security against surrounding Arab nations.

Under the guise of defence, this vision is ultimately aimed at slicing up the West Bank into Swiss cheese to eradicate the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state. Allon died in 1980, but his plan remains influential to this day. 

“The timing of the land seizure is therefore an outcome of two different processes, one, [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s way of bribing Smotrich so that he may not abandon the government, but also Netanyahu’s own way of reviving an old plan,” Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud told TNA. 

"To steal land requires violence, to put the settlers there requires violence. Each and every aspect of it is violence"

As analysts sound the alarm over the annexation of the West Bank, the international community is largely ignorant, with attention being paid to the looming war between Lebanon and Israel and the ongoing catastrophe in the besieged Gaza Strip. 

Yet the West Bank has erupted into violence since 7 October 2023, with the Israeli army regularly raiding towns and refugee camps and settler attacks spiking. This latest development appears to fan the flames further. 

“To steal land requires violence, to put the settlers there requires violence. Each and every aspect of it is violence,” Buttu said.

“It's exactly what the Israelis want - to have this conflict so they can scare the public into believing the only way necessary is to live by the gun and obscure the reality they’ve stolen somebody else's country.”

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News.

Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum