JERUSALEM: Israel has authorized its largest land seizure in the occupied West Bank in more than thirty years, a move that critics on Wednesday argued undermines prospects for peace with the Palestinians.
The Israeli government officially designated 12.7 square kilometers (4.9 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley as “state property” in June, according to documents obtained by AFP and revealed by the Peace Now group.
This announcement marks the largest appropriation of land since the 1993 Oslo Accords and is part of a broader trend that has seen 23.7 square kilometers seized in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, Peace Now reported.
When land is declared state property, Palestinians lose their private ownership rights and are barred from using it, further complicating efforts towards a resolution of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war and has since established numerous settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. These settlements are now home to more than 490,000 Israelis, amidst a Palestinian population of approximately three million in the West Bank.
In the 1980s, Israel undertook extensive land seizures in the West Bank, which halted in 1992 but were resumed under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first government in 1996. The recent move, near the Yafit settlement, earmarks the land for either a nature reserve or military purposes.
Critics, including Peace Now, have condemned Netanyahu and his hard-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for prioritizing settlements over efforts to resolve the political conflict or end the ongoing Gaza war tensions. Peace Now emphasized the necessity of a political settlement that establishes a Palestinian state alongside Israel for lasting peace in the region.
The United Nations has cautioned that Israel’s accelerated settlement construction since the onset of the Gaza conflict on October 7 risks eroding the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also criticized the expansion of settlements as detrimental to achieving lasting peace with the Palestinians.
