Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday announced a series of security cabinet decisions to “dramatically” change land registration and property acquisition procedures in the West Bank, easing Jewish settlement in the territory.
The decisions “are intended to remove decades-old barriers, repeal discriminatory Jordanian legislation, and enable accelerated development of settlement on the ground,” the two ministers said in a joint statement.
The approved plan ordered the publication of land registries in the West Bank, according to the statement, meaning that property lists will be open to the public, and potential buyers will be able to identify landowners and approach them for purchasing. Until now, land registration in the West Bank had been classified.
The cabinet action also repealed a legal provision that prevented non-Muslims from buying real estate in the area — a law left over from the period when Jordan controlled the territory. Until the cabinet’s approval, Jews could acquire land only through companies registered in the area rather than privately.
Alongside this, the requirement for a transaction license from the land-registration officer has been canceled, to be replaced by “professional threshold conditions only, removing a major obstacle in the local real estate market,” the statement added.
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The new arrangement will “allow Jews to purchase land in Judea and Samaria just as they purchase [land] in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem,” it said, using biblical terminology for the regions that make up the West Bank.
L: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90); R: Defense Minister Israel Katz at the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 24, 2025. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
It was also decided to expand oversight and enforcement activities into areas A and B with regard to water violations, damage to archaeological sites, and environmental hazards that pollute the entire territory, the statement said.
According to the Oslo II Accords, signed in 1995 by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank is divided into three areas, A, B and C. While Area C is under full Israeli control, Area B is under Palestinian civilian control and Israeli security control, and Area A is under full Palestinian control.
Israel to expand control over Tomb of the Patriarchs
Additionally, the plan approved Sunday would transfer authority over building permits for the Jewish settlement in Hebron — including at the highly contested Tomb of the Patriarchs site — from the Hebron municipality, which is subordinate to the Palestinian Authority, to Israel.
The site is believed to be the burial place of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.
Until now, in accordance with the 1997 Hebron Agreement, any construction changes in the Jewish community had to pass through both the municipality and the Civil Administration. With the cabinet’s approval, such changes will now require authorization only from Israel’s defense establishment.
A view of the Tomb of the Patriarchs after Israeli officials hung Israeli flags on its fortification and put a seven-branched candelabrum, menorah, on it in Hebron, in the West Bank, on April 29, 2025. (Wisam Hashlamoun/FLASH90)
The decisions Sunday will also affect the site of Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem by establishing “a dedicated municipal authority” responsible for cleaning and routine maintenance of the holy site.
The measures were not brought for approval by the full cabinet but rather to the security cabinet, whose members have broadly called for applying sovereignty in the West Bank. Reversal of these decisions would involve significant legal complexity.
PA: Decisions are null and void; Hamas urges ‘escalation’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the decisions, declaring them illegal and invalid, and demanding US and UN intervention to stop their implementation, according to the PA’s official WAFA news agency.
WAFA said Abbas’s office “warned of the dangers of any infringement upon Islamic and Christian holy sites, emphasizing that any violation of the Ibrahimi Mosque and the transfer of authority over it are unacceptable,” using a Muslim term for the Hebron compound.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the Atreju political meeting organized by the young militants of Italian right-wing party Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) on December 12, 2025, in Rome. (Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
Also condemning the move was Hamas, which urged an “escalation” in the West Bank and demanded Arab and Muslim nations cut ties with Israel.
“We demand Arab and Muslim nations fulfill their historic responsibility to challenge the occupation and its grand design to annex the West Bank,” the terror group said in a statement, referring to Israel. It called for those countries to “reinforce a unified Arab and Muslim position” by “cutting ties with the Zionist entity, and banishing its envoys from capitals that have established ties with it.”
Hamas also called on Palestinians across the West to launch a “rebellion across the West Bank and Jerusalem” and “escalation by all available means of the conflict with the occupation and its settlers, in order to thwart the projects of annexation, Judaziation and displacement.”
Hamas regularly uses the word “settlers” to refer to Jews in both Israel and the West Bank.
Settlement group praises move as act of de facto annexation
The Yesha Council umbrella organization, which represents settlement municipal authorities in the West Bank, called the decisions on Sunday among “the most significant decisions made by the State of Israel since its return to Judea and Samaria 58 years ago.”
“The government of Israel announced today, in practice, that the Land of Israel belongs to the Nation of Israel,” the council said, adding that the decisions “rectified an injustice of many years and are entrenching Israeli sovereignty on the ground, de facto.”
A general view of the newly established Jewish settlement of Yatziv in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank, January 19, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The Peace Now organization, which advocates a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, said in a statement: “Netanyahu promised to topple Hamas in Gaza, but in practice he chose to topple the Palestinian Authority, to annul the agreements Israel signed, and to force a de facto annexation on us, in total opposition to the will of the nation, Israel’s interest, and the clear position of President Trump.”
The Emek Shaveh NGO, which describes its mission as “protecting ancient sites as public assets that belong to members of all communities, faiths, and peoples,” also condemned the decisions, declaring it an end to the government’s “pretense” of substantive concern over archaeological sites in the West Bank.
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