5 July 2024: Israeli authorities have recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers of land in the occupied West Bank, marking the largest single land seizure in nearly thirty years, according to Peace Now, an Israeli settlement watchdog.
The Custodian of the State’s Property in the Civil Administration, an Israeli body responsible for approving construction in the West Bank, announced the land seizure in the Jordan Valley. This move represents the most extensive land appropriation since the Oslo Accords, a series of peace agreements signed in 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Peace Now reports that in 2024 alone, Israel has declared approximately 23.7 square kilometers of West Bank land as “State Lands.” This bureaucratic procedure effectively revokes Palestinian ownership rights, reserving the lands exclusively for Israeli use and settlement expansion.
The West Bank has been under Israeli control since the 1967 Middle East war, with ongoing settlement expansion since then. The international community broadly considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a significant obstacle to peace, as Palestinians aspire to establish a future state there.
This recent land appropriation is expected to escalate tensions in an already volatile region, which has seen increasing violence following Israel’s retaliatory actions in Gaza after a Hamas attack on southern Israel in October of the previous year.
