- Israel has committed the largest land theft in the occupied West Bank in over 30 years, appropriating 12.7 square km in the Jordan Valley.
- This follows record land seizures in 2024 totalling 11.6 square km.
Israel has sanctioned the largest land seizure in the occupied West Bank in over 30 years, as reported by the anti-settlement watchdog group, Peace Now, on Wednesday. This move involves the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometres (nearly 5 square miles) in the Jordan Valley. According to Peace Now, this is the largest single appropriation since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Approved late last month but disclosed only on Wednesday, this land seizure follows the appropriation of 8 square kilometres (roughly 3 square miles) in March and 2.6 square kilometres (1 square mile) in February, marking 2024 as a record year for Israelis stealing land in the West Bank.
Stolen Palestinian homes, contiguous and located northeast of Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, have been declared state lands by the Israeli government. This designation opens them up for leasing to Israelis while prohibiting private Palestinian ownership.
The declaration, signed in June by Hillel Roth—a deputy appointed by Smotrich to promote settlement expansion and state land declarations in the West Bank—was published Wednesday and obtained by The Associated Press.
In the wake of Israel’s brutal bombardment of Gaza since October 7th, 37,877 Palestinians have been killed. Concurrently, the frequency of violent settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has more than doubled, escalating from an average of three to eight incidents a day according to the United Nations. Consequently, Israel continues to perpetrate heinous atrocities, persistently violating international law both within and outside the Gaza Strip.
A 2017 Amnesty International report reads:
“For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there. Since the occupation first began in June 1967, Israel’s ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, coupled with rampant discrimination, have inflicted immense suffering on Palestinians, depriving them of their basic rights.”
Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian lawyer and writer asserts:
“THE WORST THING IS THE SENSE OF BEING A STRANGER IN YOUR OWN LAND AND FEELING THAT NOT A SINGLE PART OF IT IS YOURS”
