Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n
The Israeli security cabinet has approved a series of far-reaching changes expanding the powers of Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank and making it easier for Jewish settlers to buy land in the Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n
The moves are the latest in a string of steps taken by Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s far-right government to tighten Israel\u2019s grip on the West Bank, which Palestinians seek as the heart of a future state but which Israel has subjected to a military occupation for more than half a century.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s ultranationalist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has long called for Israel to annex the territory, said the moves would \u201cfundamentally change the legal and civil reality\u201d in the West Bank and that the government was \u201cburying the idea of \u200b\u200ba Palestinian state\u201d.<\/p>\n
The changes, approved on Sunday, abolish a provision preventing Jewish private citizens from buying land in the West Bank and remove Palestinian officials from decisions on building permits in the Jewish settlement in Hebron, including at a holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. <\/p>\n
They also give Israeli authorities powers to take action, such as carrying out property demolitions, against people deemed responsible for environmental hazards, water offences and damage to archaeological sites in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA).<\/p>\n
In a joint statement with defence minister Israel Katz, Smotrich said Israel would also re-establish a land acquisition committee that would \u201cproactively\u201d buy up land in the West Bank.<\/p>\n
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the moves as \u201cde facto annexation of Palestinian land\u201d and called on US President Donald Trump, who said last year that he opposed Israeli annexation of the West Bank, to intervene.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ministry condemns Israel\u2019s desperate attempts to impose a fait accompli through colonial settlement and changing the legal reality and status of the occupied Palestinian land,\u201d the ministry said.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Netanyahu\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The moves are the latest in a string of measures taken by Netanyahu\u2019s government \u2014 in which ultranationalist settlers such as Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wield significant influence \u2014 to entrench Israeli control of the West Bank.<\/p>\n
Since taking office in 2022, the government has embarked on a massive expansion of settlements, which are illegal under international law, and sharply ratcheted up land seizures. It has also retroactively \u201clegalised\u201d settlement outposts that even Israel previously deemed illegal.<\/p>\n
Peace Now, an Israeli NGO that monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, said Sunday\u2019s decisions were \u201ca direct violation of the international agreements to which Israel is committed\u201d, including the Oslo Accords, which temporarily divided the West Bank into areas known as A, B and C.<\/p>\n
Under the Accords, the PA was to administer Areas A and B, with Israel maintaining security control of the latter. Area C was to be controlled by Israel, which was meant to gradually transfer the territory to Palestinian jurisdiction, subject to land swaps in a final deal. <\/p>\n
However, the transfer never took place, and successive Israeli governments have expanded settlements in the territory. Since Netanyahu\u2019s administration took office, there has also been a surge in settler violence that has forced dozens of Palestinian communities off their land in Area C.<\/p>\n
The cabinet\u2019s decision shows that this was about \u2018\u2018breaking every possible barrier on the path to massive land theft in the West Bank\u201d, Peace Now said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-282164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}