“Union for Justice”: Occupation Authorities Took Control of Thousands of Dunams in the West Bank After Classifying Them as State Lands
14/9/2026 – Union for Justice Foundation
The Union for Justice Foundation said that, from 7 October 2023 until the end of last August, the occupation authorities classified approximately 30,000 dunams of Palestinian land as “state lands,” in one of the widest operations of seizure of West Bank lands since the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993.
The Foundation pointed out that the year 2024 alone witnessed the registration of more than 24,000 dunams as “state lands,” while the occupation authorities, during the period between 1993 and 2023, classified approximately 900,000 dunams of West Bank land as “state lands.”
The occupation authorities use the term “state lands” or “government property” as a legal tool to control Palestinian lands in the West Bank and expand settlements, after changing the legal classification, as Israel reinterprets old land laws to convert wide areas of Palestinian lands into Israeli government property.
The owner of land who does not possess a recognized private title deed or evidence of permanent use becomes vulnerable to having his land reclassified as “state lands” based on administrative interpretations of inherited land laws. Here, the burden of proof shifts to the Palestinians instead of the occupying power being the one required to prove the legal legitimacy of its continued presence.
The Union for Justice added: “In mid-February last year, the Israeli government approved a decision to begin procedures for the settlement and registration of lands in the West Bank as ‘state lands’ and Israeli public property, for the first time since 1967.”
It indicated that this decision is part of an Israeli plan that will be implemented over the next five years and aims to convert approximately 15% of the lands of Area C in the West Bank into “state lands,” which will prevent Palestinians from building on them, while allowing settlers to build after their acquisition.
It explained: “The declaration of Palestinian lands as state lands does not represent separate incidents, but rather interconnected links in a policy aimed at expanding settlements and legalizing settlement outposts, connecting the blocs to one another, and tightening control over the strategic geographical junctions in the West Bank.”
According to the Union for Justice Foundation, classifying any Palestinian land under the designation of “state lands” constitutes a practical step that transfers control over it to the Israeli official responsible for government property, which subsequently opens the door to its confiscation, incorporating it into areas of settlement influence, preparing structural plans, and establishing infrastructure.
The occupation authorities also aim, through classifying Palestinian lands as “state lands,” to regularize the (illegal) outposts and transform them into independent legal settlements (according to the classification of the occupation government), and to control the geographical corridors connecting Palestinian communities to one another.
Since 7 October 2023, the classification of “state lands” has become a central tool in the annexation project, as the occupation government exploits international preoccupation with what is taking place in the Gaza Strip to change the legal and geographical status of West Bank lands, and to transform the scattered outposts established by settlers into permanent settlements receiving official government funding.
According to the Union for Justice Foundation, the occupation authorities sometimes resort to old declarations dating back years, which classified certain Palestinian lands as “state lands,” and redraw the boundaries of those lands anew, which has led to the incorporation of additional areas.
It pointed out that this pattern of procedures illustrates how old declarations can become a basis that is subject to expansion and reinterpretation, so that the boundaries of “state lands” do not remain fixed at the area determined when the declaration was issued years ago, but are later subjected to review and redrawing processes, leading to the inclusion of additional areas of Palestinian land within them.
The Union for Justice stresses that Israel does not possess sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian land, and that the use of the classification of “state lands” does not grant these measures any legal legitimacy, and constitutes a clear violation of the rules of international law and the resolutions of international legitimacy that affirm the illegality of settlements in all their forms that result from it.
It emphasizes that manipulation of terminology does not change the essence of the ongoing process, which is based on transferring increasingly large areas of Palestinian land from the scope of Palestinian use and control to Israeli control, thereby preparing them later for settlement purposes, and transforming land seizure from isolated measures into a continuous cumulative policy.
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