Israeli land grab accelerates in occupied West Bank amid new land registration law

Ahmad Salhab, 56, had just finished his morning prayer on the first day of Ramadan last week when he heard a faint hum of approaching vehicles.

The distant rumble slowly turned into a thunder as three bulldozers showed up at the gate of his family home in a quiet neighbourhood of the City of Hebron in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.

The earth-moving equipment operated by Israeli authorities was there to knock down the three-floor structure with 10 apartments housing over 40 family members of Salhab.

“At 6 in the morning… they directly started the demolitions without giving us the chance to collect any of our belongings or furniture,” he tells TRT World.

The Israeli authorities did not give him any days or even hours before starting the demolition of a house built by Salhab’s father in 1965, two years before Israel occupied the West Bank.

They refused to hear him out or give even a few hours to evacuate the building. 

“Instead, they attacked us and beat everyone, young or old,” he says.

Experts say that what happened to Salhab’s family foreshadows a larger displacement campaign following the latest legal changes meant to strip Palestinians of their ancestral lands in the occupied West Bank.

As part of a long-term Israeli land grab project that critics call ethnic cleansing, Tel Aviv has signalled that it will start land registration in the occupied territory for the first time since 1967, when Israel captured the entire historical Palestine, as well as additional land from Egypt and Syria.

Under the new law, Tel Aviv will be able to reclassify “undocumented” Palestinian property as “state land” ready for settler expansion. 

The planned move targets vast swaths of land in Area C, which consists of over 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, where Israel already retains extensive control over security, planning, and zoning.

Around 58 percent of Area C is currently unregistered land. 

The new policy includes the cancellation of a Jordanian law barring land sales to Israelis and the expansion of Israeli oversight into Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority enjoys limited governance power under the Oslo Accords.

Palestinians view the so-called administrative reform as another tool to accelerate the pace of land grab already in full swing under other pretexts.  

The Israeli move will systematically disadvantage Palestinians, many of whom rely on customary inheritance and partial registrations from Ottoman, British Mandate, and Jordanian eras, experts say.

Nasir Qadri, an international law practitioner and critical legal scholar at Koc University in Istanbul, tells TRT World that the proposed changes will redefine what constitutes legally recognisable land ownership.

The imposition of stringent evidentiary requirements changes inherited rights into fragile claims that can be administratively nullified, he says.

Under the 1907 Hague Regulations, an occupying power like Israel must act as a temporary administrator, not a sovereign, reshaping the property structure.

“Where heirs cannot satisfy heightened proof standards or navigate complex consolidation procedures, land long treated as family property may be reclassified, designated as state land, or absorbed into settlement expansion,” he says.

Suhad Bishara, Legal Director at the Israel-based independent human rights organisation Adalah, agrees with this view.

“The opening of land registries is not primarily about individual ‘coercion’ to sell. It is a structural mechanism for dispossession,” she tells TRT World.

She explains that the process imposes “evidentiary standards that are nearly impossible for Palestinians to meet” and is inaccessible to refugees or Gaza residents.

If owners fail to register with the required documentation or cannot physically access the Israeli-run registries, their land will default to Israeli “state land”, she says.

Bishara says the move violates Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, which prohibits the confiscation of private property, and can constitute a war crime under the Rome Statute, a treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can investigate and prosecute the four core international crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression – in situations where states are either unable or unwilling to do so themselves.

Threat to Palestinian agriculture  

Bishara warns that the start of land title settlement directly threatens Palestinian agriculture.

Much of the farmland and grazing areas in the occupied West Bank are likely to be reclassified as “state land”, leading to more Israeli settlements. It will deprive Palestinian farmers of access to their lands because proving ownership is “extremely difficult”, she says.

This fragmentation will make it harder for farmers to reach fields or markets, worsening the already tough economic conditions of Palestinians living under occupation.

For example, Salhab's family now clings to 200 dunams (about 50 acres) of olive groves near their demolished home. But he fears losing 70 dunams (17 acres) due to proximity to the Beit Hagai settlement, built illegally by Israel in the 1980s.

“Since we are in Area C, I am afraid Israel will control it and it will eventually become part of the settlement. We will likely lose it for good," Salhab says.

Yair Dvir, spokesperson for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, frames the legal changes as part of a deliberate policy of the forced removal of Palestinians from their ancestral land.

“The recent cabinet decisions are designed to advance ethnic cleansing in the (occupied) West Bank,” Dvir tells TRT World.

In Area C, Israel’s systematic land registration process will place deliberate bureaucratic obstacles in the way of Palestinians trying to prove land ownership, he says.

Dvir also points to the risks of coercion in Areas A and B, where private Israeli purchases from Palestinians will now be permitted.

“Past experience shows that such transactions are often accompanied by coercion, pressure, and fraud," he says, predicting heavy military presence and gradual displacement once settlers infiltrate Palestinian towns.

These legal shifts also empower Israeli authorities to wield enforcement tools more aggressively.

Qadri says that while tools like stopwork orders, demolitions, and fines are not new, their integration into a centralised registry amplifies their impact.

“When planning powers are exercised in a manner that systematically denies permits to the protected population while facilitating settlement expansion, enforcement ceases to function as neutral regulation,” he says.

In densely populated cities like Hebron and Nablus, the transfer of building permit authority to the Israeli Civil Administration will accelerate demolition rates, Dvir says.

This undermines the Oslo framework, giving Israel more means to extend existing policies of land confiscation and demolition of Palestinian structures under pretexts such as archaeology or environmental protection, he says.

No time to collect valuables 

Salhab's experience illustrates the brutality of Israeli actions. Israeli forces demolished his home, despite a pending Supreme Court appeal.

Salhab, born and raised in the house his father built, lost not just a house but a lifetime of memories.

“I have plenty of memories. Actually, all of my memories are in this home. I got married and my kids were born there,” he says.

Now displaced to family fields and living in Red Cross tents, his family could not even salvage jewellery or cash.

“The demolition operation was so swift that we didn’t even get the chance to collect any valuables,” Salhab says.

Israel's actions violate UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which calls settlements illegal.

With 770,000 illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and seizures of 58,000 dunams by late 2025, the pace of land grabs has intensified since the Gaza war began in October 2023. 

Yet, international response has remained inadequate.

Qadri says human rights mechanisms often become “instruments of after-the-fact narration rather than protection” when it comes to confronting Israel.

Calling for an “international law from below” grounded in the realities of the oppressed, he insists on structural accountability for genocide, occupation, and exploitation.

For Salhab, there is little hope of ever getting his ancestral land back.

“The Israelis are occupiers,” he says.

“They don’t care about either lives or properties.”