{"id":300847,"date":"2026-02-20T10:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/300847\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T10:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T10:22:16","slug":"expansion-of-west-bank-rule-appears-to-shift-creeping-annexation-into-higher-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/300847\/","title":{"rendered":"Expansion of West Bank rule appears to shift ‘creeping annexation’ into higher gear"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a rare confluence of opinion between boosters of Israel\u2019s settlement enterprise and its staunchest critics, moves by the government expanding civilian governance of the West Bank have been termed by both as acts of de facto Israeli annexation, or significant steps on the way to it.<\/p>\n

But even as some diplomats have downplayed the measures as bureaucratic steps with little practical application, experts say that de facto annexation is an accurate description of government moves that are transforming Israel\u2019s military occupation of the West Bank into permanent control.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the security cabinet greatly eased<\/a> the ability of Israelis to purchase private property in the West Bank, while expanding Israel\u2019s ability to conduct oversight and enforcement activities against Palestinian construction activity in Areas A and B of the West Bank, where until now Israel has not had civilian administrative control.<\/p>\n

A week later, on Sunday, the full cabinet approved<\/a> the opening of a new land registration process for Area C in the West Bank \u2014 the 60 percent of the territory that Israel has full control over. Both the government and critics said the measure would enable the state to declare large swaths of land in the territory as available for public development, meaning the creation and expansion of settlements and settlement infrastructure.<\/p>\n

These latest moves are the latest in a series of administrative, legal, legislative, and practical measures the government has taken in the last three years that have greatly tightened and expanded Israel\u2019s presence in and control over Area C of the West Bank.<\/p>\n

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During the tenure of the current government, some 69 settlements have either been freshly established or retroactively legalized; 120 agricultural outposts<\/a> have been created to assert control over large swaths of pasture land; the construction of tens of thousands of housing units has been approved; and a record amount of West Bank land has been appropriated<\/a> for use by the settlement enterprise.<\/p>\n

Opponents of the settlement movement have long warned of creeping annexation, and did so again in response to the latest government steps.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tFinance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends a press conference announcing his plans to approve more than 3,000 housing units in the E1 West Bank settlement project between Jerusalem and Ma\u2019ale Adumim on August 14, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

But others have pushed back.<\/p>\n

After Qatar released a statement this week from eight Muslim and Arab countries accusing Israel of \u201cattempt[ing] to impose a new legal and administrative reality,\u201d the Foreign Ministry responded that the changes were merely \u201can administrative measure\u2026 within the realms of civil and property law.\u201d<\/p>\n

This text is factually baseless and intentionally misleading.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian Authority is the one advancing illegal land registration procedures in Area C, in violation of the law and existing agreements. <\/p>\n

The Israeli government approved an administrative measure this week\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/9soaC4N6oP<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) February 17, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

It added that the steps were \u201cdesigned to enable land registration procedures\u201d and \u201cresolve legal disputes,\u201d and would \u201cprotect the property rights of Israelis and Palestinians alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alan Baker, the head of the International Law Program at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, also rejected the idea that the moves were part of a larger process toward annexation.<\/p>\n

\u201cStreamlining legal and administrative procedures, improving planning and oversight, ensuring transparent property purchase and registration, and protecting archaeological sites are all part of Israel\u2019s responsibilities under the existing framework,\u201d he wrote<\/a> on The Times of Israel\u2019s open blogging platform.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, several members of the cabinet have explicitly stated on more than one occasion that the government is advancing de facto processes on the ground to assert Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, a process that would effectively equal annexation.<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a staunch supporter of settlements who also holds a role in the Defense Ministry that gives him wide influence over the West Bank\u2019s affairs, has openly declared on several occasions that the policies he is pursuing are specifically designed as a form of de facto annexation, where Israel takes full civilian control of large parts of the West Bank without actually declaring that it is annexing the territory.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s decision on restarting the West Bank land registration process was itself founded on a security cabinet decision from May 2025, which Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz explicitly stated was designed to expand and further entrench the presence of the settlements, and was part of \u201cde facto sovereignty\u201d steps the government was taking.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tJewish settlers seen at an illegal outpost in the Binyamin area of the central West Bank, December 7, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

At the time, Katz said the move, which ordered state agencies to prepare the ground for opening a land registration process, would \u201cdo justice for Jewish settlement in [the West Bank], and strengthen it, ground it, and expand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smotrich, whose Religious Zionism party relies on Israel\u2019s approximately 500,000 settlers for much of its support, said that the decision was passed \u201cwithin the framework of the normalization and de facto sovereignty revolution that we are leading in Judea and Samaria.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cabinet minister added that Israel was \u201cfor the first time taking responsibility for the territory as permanent sovereign\u201d through the land registration process, which, he said, would \u201callow for land reserves for settlement development, and prevent the Palestinian Authority\u2019s efforts to take over the open areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of this, Smotrich said, was designed to help bring a million Israeli citizens to West Bank settlements and \u201celiminate the threat of a Palestinian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Radical change\u2019<\/p>\n

Land registration in the West Bank was first undertaken during the British mandate and continued under Jordan until 1967, though only one-third of the territory was registered in the process.<\/p>\n

In 1968, a year after capturing the West Bank in the Six Day War, Israel halted the process.<\/p>\n

The new registration process will only take place in Area C, home to all the Israeli settlers.<\/p>\n

The process is expected to take some 30 years, with any parcel not registered by Israel as having an owner becoming state land, which would allow it to be used for essentially any civilian or military purpose the government wants.<\/p>\n

Though Israel has controlled the West Bank for 58 years, it has never formally annexed the territory, which Palestinians view as the heartland of their future state.<\/p>\n

Instead, it has preserved military governance of the West Bank by the Defense Ministry under the terms of what is known in international law as a \u201cbelligerent occupation,\u201d although it has never formally adopted those principles and contends that the territory is not occupied in the legal sense since there was no legitimate sovereign prior to 1967.<\/p>\n

Yonatan Mizrachi of Peace Now\u2019s \u201cSettlement Watch\u201d department said the two government decisions this month are part of a shift in how Israel runs the territory that is taking shape in the wake of a far-reaching government decision<\/a> from February 2023.<\/p>\n

That was when much of the authority for civilian matters in the West Bank was transferred<\/a> from the Defense Ministry\u2019s Civil Administration unit, which is subordinate to the Israel Defense Forces command hierarchy, to a civilian official working under the head of the Defense Ministry\u2019s Settlements Administration, which was established by the government and made subordinate to Smotrich.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tCivil Administration and Border Police forces demolish houses belonging to a Palestinian family in the village of Mufagra near the West Bank city of Yatta, September 11, 2019. (Wisam Hashlamoun\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as the government created the Settlements Administration it created the basis of an infrastructure for a system that disconnects the settlements from the Civil Administration,\u201d said Mizrachi.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as you do that, you disconnect civil governance from the military, you are effectively conducting civilian rule over the territory,\u201d he continued, adding that in his opinion the West Bank was therefore already in a \u201cpost-annexation process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The widely held position in international law is that belligerent occupations should be temporary, cannot be used to assert control over the territory under occupation, and the occupying power should act in the interests of the prewar inhabitants of the territory.<\/p>\n

But using civilian agencies as part of the governing infrastructure for the West Bank could be seen as an assertion of sovereign control over the territory \u2014 in other words, annexation.<\/p>\n

Tal Mimran, a lecturer in international law at Zefat Academic College in Safed, said that the principles of belligerent occupations require that actions be conducted by the military and that the civilian government have no role in governing the territory.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that under the laws of belligerent occupation, the occupying power is expected to maintain the legal status quo in the territory and not make any irreversible changes to its character.<\/p>\n

The recent steps taken by the government, in particular the land registration drive, could run up against the obligation to maintain the status quo, said Mimran.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tThen-incoming IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth attends a handover ceremony at Central Command headquarters in Jerusalem on July 8, 2024. (Oren Ben Hakoon\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

According to Mizrachi, the government decisions this month create \u201cfurther legal infrastructure\u201d for annexation, as they \u201cradically change\u201d the state\u2019s relationship to West Bank land.<\/p>\n

The cabinet decision opening the land registration process instructed the commander of the IDF\u2019s Central Command \u2014 the de facto military governor of the West Bank \u2014 to authorize the Land Registry department in the Justice Ministry to carry out the land registration process.<\/p>\n

The Land Registry department will establish a land title settlement administration to conduct the work, under the terms of the cabinet resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would transfer responsibility for land registration in Area C from the Civil Administration, which operates under the military, to the State of Israel,\u201d Peace Now pointed out on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Combined with the earlier security cabinet decision enabling Israelis to more easily purchase private property in the West Bank, these new decisions essentially make the state\u2019s relationship with West Bank land similar to land within sovereign Israel \u201cand create the basis to expand Israeli control\u201d of the land, Mizrachi said.<\/p>\n

According to the B\u2019Tselem organization, which opposes Israeli rule in the West Bank, Israel has declared over 900,000 dunams (222,000 acres) of land in the West Bank to be state land since 1979, ignoring claims by Palestinians that some property which is not registered in the land registry is nevertheless privately owned. Those claims are based on Ottoman taxation records, which Israeli authorities do not accept as proof of ownership.<\/p>\n

According to information provided by the Civil Administration following a freedom of information request by Peace Now in 2018, fully 99.8% of state land allocated for public use in the West Bank has been allocated for the use and needs of Israeli settlements.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tPalestinian laborers work at a construction site in Ma\u2019ale Adumim, in the West Bank, on February 29, 2024. (Menahem Kahana \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, the territories are now basically annexed,\u201d Mizrachi asserted, although he added that these steps could still be undone.<\/p>\n

This imposition of greater and greater civilian control over the West Bank is also reflected in the statements of the cabinet ministers involved in these decisions.<\/p>\n

Smotrich himself described the strategy<\/a> of using the Defense Ministry to establish civilian authority over the West Bank in 2024. \u201cWe created a separate civilian system,\u201d but kept the process within the Defense Ministry, \u201cso that they won\u2019t say that we are doing annexation here,\u201d he said at the time.<\/p>\n

Following the security cabinet decision on February 8 easing property acquisition, Smotrich described the measures as a \u201creal revolution,\u201d stating that the government was \u201cnormalizing life in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank],\u201d \u201cdeepening our hold on all parts of the Land of Israel,\u201d and \u201ccontinuing to kill the idea of a Palestinian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katz made similar comments, saying the step \u201cstrengthened the Israeli hold over [the West Bank]\u201d and \u201cenables settlers to live, to build, and to develop as equals to all Israeli civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creeping permanence<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the International Court of Justice asserted in an advisory opinion<\/a> that Israel had already de facto annexed large parts of the West Bank, due to the permanent nature of the settlements and \u201cIsrael\u2019s extension of its domestic law to the West Bank, notably to the settlements and over settlers.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Eliav Lieblich, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, the new measures move even further \u201cin the direction of consolidating permanent control\u201d than what the ICJ opinion described, and would enable \u201cmore Israeli acquisition or taking of land, which is also a form of permanent presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asserted that the steps were not taken in the interests of the local Palestinian population but rather to advance the settlement movement, as illustrated by the comments of the cabinet ministers following the decision.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tOlive groves on the terraced hills of Battir in the West Bank, November 7, 2024. (Jeremy Sharon\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis contradicts the basic rule that the military government should administer the territories in favor of the local population,\u201d said Lieblich.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael is clearly treating the territory as its own, regardless of any formal definition,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In his opinion on the measures, Baker, a former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, described annexation as \u201ca formal governmental act\u201d that \u201ccannot be carried out quietly, \u2018creepingly,\u2019 or in secret through administrative adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mimran said that annexing a territory need not be a formal process, as shown by the ICJ advisory opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnnexation under international law is something that you look at in essence. You don\u2019t need to declare annexation, you look at actions that have been taken,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the ever-deepening entrenchment of Israel\u2019s presence in the West Bank appears to many to be designed to exert permanent control over the territory, even if that process is not formally declared to be annexation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael argued for a long time that its control of the West Bank was temporary, but now its ministers are saying that\u2019s not the case,\u201d said Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administrative moves, the statements, the steps on the ground legalizing existing [illegal settlement] outposts, the extensions of the farming outposts into Area B, these indicate together an intention, expressed as explicitly as possible by the Religious Zionism party, to make control over the West Bank permanent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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