With rights to the land at the heart of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, land sales to settlers are a murky business often involving middlemen. They are considered as treason by the PA and are therefore technically punishable by death, although convicted individuals are typically given jail terms.
Other controversial steps announced by Smotrich, who has ministerial responsibility for settlement policies, and the Defence Minister, Israel Katz, include transferring building licensing at an important religious site and sensitive areas nearby in the volatile city of Hebron solely to Israeli authorities.
The Cave of the Patriarchs – also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque – is revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s burial place. It is the second holiest site in Judaism and the fourth in Islam.
Israeli bodies would also be given oversight and enforcement powers for environmental and archaeological matters in PA-administered areas.
As well, a committee would be revived to allow the State of Israel to make “proactive” land purchases in the West Bank billed as “a step designed to secure land reserves for settlement for generations to come”.
In the wake of the 1993 Oslo Accords, a breakthrough peace agreement, the newly created PA was given full control over Palestinian urban areas – about 20% of the territory – known as Area A.
In Area B, a similar percentage, the PA had only administrative control, while Israel kept its hold on security.
Israel retained full security and administrative control of 60% of the West Bank, where settlements are located, known as Area C.
More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War. Those lands are wanted by Palestinians for their hoped-for independent state along with the Gaza Strip.
The Trump administration has ruled out Israeli annexation of the West Bank but has not sought to check Israel’s accelerated settlement construction.
Smotrich, a settler who heads a pro-settler party, has vowed to double the settler population in the West Bank.
In December, Israel’s cabinet approved a proposal for 19 new settlements. Israel is also preparing to start construction of a contentious settlement project near Jerusalem, known as E1, which would effectively sever the northern and southern West Bank.
According to the UN, a record number of more than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in 2025 alone – a year that it says also saw record-high levels of Israeli settler violence.
Netanyahu’s governing coalition includes many pro-settler members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, to which they claim religious and historic ties.
The prime minister, who faces an election later this year, has declared he would never countenance the creation of a Palestinian state, which he said would be a security threat for his country.
In 2024, the International Court of Justice – the UN’s highest court – issued a non-binding advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories was illegal and should end.