London, 17th\u00a0February 2026-\u00a0The Israeli Government has approved a process to register land in the West Ban as \u2018state property.\u2019 This process, portrayed as a dry administrative procedure, is instead the latest escalation of Israel\u2019s apartheid regime, and yet another method to further drive Palestinians from their lands. The UK must respond with sanctions on Israeli ministers in their official capacity and an official response to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The land registration process will apply to Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under complete Israeli control despite being home to 180,000-300,000 Palestinians. This is the first time since Israel\u2019s illegal occupation of the West Bank in 1967 that it will openly register such land as property of the state. Previously, in the 1970s and 1980s, a secretive government mechanism was used for Heimanuta, a subsidiary of the Jewish National Fund (KKL), to purchase land from Palestinians, at the request of the Custodian of Government Property.<\/p>\n
Israel systematically uses Kafkaesque administrative procedures to make it nearly impossible in practice for Palestinians to exercise their rights, through deliberately expensive and lengthy land registration processes, the loss and damage of land registry documents due to previous Israeli aggression and the outright rejection of legitimate documents when produced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1968, Israeli authorities suspended the previous Jordanian-led land registration process, effectively preventing Palestinians from formally recording ownership of their property. This has only been compounded by the loss and damage of documents registering their land.<\/p>\n
Despite the fact that this specific method of dispossession is unprecedented, this fits into a wider context of de facto annexation of the West Bank that has existed for decades of illegal occupation, and increased rapidly since October 2023.<\/p>\n
For instance, last May, the Israeli government approved 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, the largest in more than 30 years. In August, the \u2018E1 settlement plan\u2019 was approved, which involves extending the illegal settlement of Ma\u2019ale Adumim to cut of East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. Finally, in December 2025, Israel\u2019s security cabinet approved the\u00a0recognition of 19 new settlements<\/a>\u00a0in the occupied West Bank. This included two, Ganim and Kadim, which had originally been dismantled nearly 20 years ago.<\/p>\n This latest step is the formalisation of longstanding policies, which are now being codified in law by the Knesset. It is simply the latest escalation, and yet another method, to further drive Palestinians from their land. It is a punitive move that sits at the heart of Israel\u2019s apartheid policies, but is instead concealed by legal and administrative procedures.<\/p>\n Above all, such outrageous policies can only be implemented due to Israel\u2019s total sense of impunity. This is the direct result of Western states and the international community staying silent about the crimes against the Palestinian people for decades, especially since the genocide in Gaza. Israel knows that it can do whatever it wants without substantial measures being taken.\u00a0<\/p>\n The UK must provide a response to the International Court of Justice\u2019s Advisory Opinion on the illegality of the occupation, as it said it would do. It has now been over a year and a half and they are yet to publish a response. The UK must also sanction Israeli government ministers in their official capacity who are responsible for this escalation of the illegal occupation of Palestine.<\/p>\n ENDS<\/p>\n Notes to Editors:<\/p>\n The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians is an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n