Adalah - US and Israel Sign Illegal Agreement to Construct US Embassy Compound on Confiscated Palestinian Land in Jerusalem

Today, 1 July 2026, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion signed an agreement establishing a permanent US Embassy compound in Jerusalem. Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel strongly condemns this agreement, which directly entrenches the systemic dispossession of Palestinians and violates international law.

The site designated for the permanent compound is located on land confiscated by Israel from Palestinian landowners under the discriminatory 1950 Absentees’ Property Law. In January 2023, Adalah filed a formal objection with Israeli planning authorities on behalf of 12 descendants of the original Palestinian owners, including US and Jordanian citizens, alongside Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, challenging the allocation of this property. The objection was rejected by the planning authorities, and the plans were approved in September 2023. Subsequently, the plans for the site were confirmed by the Israeli planning authorities in April 2024.

Adalah maintains that the construction of the embassy compound violates the special international legal status of Jerusalem (corpus separatum) under UN General Assembly resolutions. Moving the embassy and recognizing the city as Israel's capital signals a blatant endorsement of Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and its severe violations of international humanitarian law.

In response to the signing of the agreement, Adalah commented:

“The agreement to construct the permanent US Embassy compound in Jerusalem deliberately enshrines a profound, historical injustice. By proceeding despite documented, lawful property claims, the United States validates the illegal seizure of land belonging to its own citizens. Furthermore, building on land seized under the Absentees’ Property Law means the US government directly endorses Israel’s unlawful mechanisms of dispossession and displacement, violating the fundamental property rights of the original Palestinian owners and their descendants, in direct defiance of international law and the prohibition against illegal annexation.”