Adalah: Israeli Security Cabinet Decision to Resume Land Registration in the West Bank is Illegal and Constitutes Crimes of Apartheid and Annexation

02/06/2025

On 28 May 2025, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel sent a letter to Israeli authorities demanding the cancellation of Security Cabinet Decision No. B/187 (11 May 2025) titled “Land Settlement in the Judea and Samaria Area.” Adalah argued that the decision is illegal and represents a deliberate step toward annexation and the expansion of Israel’s apartheid regime in the occupied West Bank.

CLICK HERE to read the [Hebrew] letter

Decision and Background on Land Settlement in the Occupied West Bank

Military Order No. 291, issued in 1968, effectively froze all ongoing land settlement procedures in the West Bank. These procedures had begun during the British Mandate and continued under Jordanian rule. Prior to the Israeli occupation, approximately one-third of the West Bank had undergone land registration, mainly in the Jenin area and the Jordan Valley. Since 1968, these processes have been suspended.

The May 2025 cabinet decision instructed the Israeli Military Commander in the West Bank to resume land settlement procedures, and to repeal Order No. 291 entirely. It also mandated several government bodies, including the Settlement Administration, and the Land Registration and Settlement Authority to prepare within 60 days for the process to begin.

The Defense Minister Israel Katz hailed the decision as a “revolutionary move” to “strengthen Jewish settlement,” while Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared it as a first step toward applying “full responsibility” over the territory. He described land registration as key to formalizing outposts and preparing for the absorption of “another million settlers.”

As noted in Adalah’s letter, the cabinet decision had an immediate legal impact. In HCJ 3819/11, the state used the new policy to justify the delay of a Supreme Court-ordered evacuation of buildings built by Israeli Jewish settlers on privately-owned Palestinian land in the settlement of Eli, claiming that it marked a “fundamental change in circumstances.”

Violations of International Law

The letter, sent by Adalah’s legal director Dr. Suhad Bishara argues that the resumption of land registration directly serves Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. The move expands Israel’s de facto annexation over occupied territory.

The cabinet decision violates core principles of international humanitarian law (IHL). As an occupying power, Israel is barred from exercising sovereignty or taking irreversible actions in the West Bank. Land settlement is a sovereign act, permanently altering land ownership regimes. Under IHL, such acts are prohibited in occupied territory.

These actions also deepen Israel’s unlawful annexation of the West Bank and further entrench its apartheid regime. The ICJ’s 2004 and 2024 Advisory Opinions affirm the illegality of Israeli settlements and the transfer of settlers into occupied territory, in violation of Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. In its 2024 opinion, the Court further concluded that Israel’s presence in the OPT is unlawful. Under Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute, such transfers of population constitute war crimes. The policy also meets the legal definition of apartheid, a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(j) of the Rome Statute, as well as an offense under the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Furthermore, the land registration process is structurally inaccessible to large segments of the Palestinian population. It excludes Palestinian refugees displaced in 1967 who reside in neighboring countries, Palestinians in Gaza with land claims in the West Bank, and non-residents with pre-1967 land rights, such as Jordanian nationals. Excluding these groups results in de facto confiscation of their property and its reclassification as “state land” by Israel.

Even West Bank Palestinians face significant barriers, including draconian and restrictive Israeli interpretations of Ottoman and Jordanian land laws, and almost insurmountable evidentiary burdens, such as inaccessible, old documents located in archives in Jordan or Turkey.

Adalah’s letter concludes that the cabinet decision directly facilitates Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, constitutes annexation, and deepens the apartheid regime imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank, and thus, it must be cancelled.