Annexation and structural changes to Israeli control

Israel’s 37th government continues its steady march toward annexation and application of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, as it has done since its formation in December 2022 (see the 58th year State of the Occupation report). This policy is dictated and implemented by the government through resolutions, directives, programs, and funding allocations, and it is manifested on the ground through the violent seizure of land, settlement expansion, construction, and retroactive approval of unauthorized outposts and the displacement of Palestinian communities.

The transfer of extensive powers governing civilian life in the West Bank from the Civil Administration, the military body responsible for managing civilian aspects of life in the West Bank, to civilian authorities answerable to elected politicians, particularly the Minister of Defense, Bezalel Smotrich, is one of the main tools used to deepen Israeli control and preparing the ground for the application of sovereignty. Steered by Smotrich, the new Settlement Administration was established under his direct supervision. Within the Civil Administration itself, a civilian was appointed deputy head of the Civil Administration, answerable directly to the minister, rather than to the senior military officer heading the Civil Administration. Core powers in areas such as land management, planning and building, infrastructure, and the economy were transferred to this deputy. These changes weaken the Civil Administration and infuse its operations with undue political considerations that are inconsistent with its obligations toward the Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories. Following a petition by Yesh Din and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the State announced that the minister’s and deputy’s powers would be scaled back somewhat, prompting the HCJ to dismiss the petition. Nonetheless, the transfer of powers remains mostly intact.

Granting the authority to govern life in the West Bank to a minister in the Israeli government constitutes a change in the legal structure of Israeli control in the West Bank, in contravention of international law.

Key changes from recent months include measures to expand Israeli control in Areas B and A in addition to Area C, and seismic changes in the land management authority. In two decisions adopted by the Government of Israel and the Security Cabinet in February 2026, the government subsumed powers and discretion vested in the military commander to carry out irreversible acts normally reserved for sovereign rulers. These decisions are in addition to a slew of legal and structural measures, that have been carried out by the government since it was sworn in, as noted above, which have resulted in large scale dispossession of Palestinians from their lands, more entrenched discrimination, and serious violations of human rights. These decisions, in part intended to thwart any chance of a future peace agreement and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, constitute a grave breach of international law, which prohibits the annexation of occupied territory and the introduction of long term changes.

Security Cabinet decision to change the legal structure in the West Bank

On February 8, 2026, the Security Cabinet approved a slew of measures that profoundly changed the legal structure in the West Bank and are expected to lead to gross violations of Palestinians’ rights.

The measures, drafted under the initiative of the Settlement Administration in the Ministry of Defense, are intended to strengthen Israeli civilian control and enable accelerated settlement development by:

1. Removing legal and bureaucratic impediments to land purchases by non Palestinians, including both private actors and the State of Israel;

2. Strengthening Israeli control by taking municipal management pertaining to the Jewish settlement in Hebron, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Rachel’s Tomb and other heritage sites from the relevant Palestinian municipalities (Hebron and Bethlehem), and transferring it to Israel;

3. Expanding Israeli enforcement powers “with regard to water offenses, harm to heritage and archaeological sites, and environmental hazards” in Areas A and B, following a similar decision from June 2024 and in violation of the Oslo Accords.

The Security Cabinet did not specify how these decisions would be implemented, but it is safe to assume that implementation will take place via military orders signed by the GOC Central Command, who serves as the military commander, standing in for the sovereign in the West Bank.

Government decision to renew settlement of land title in the West Bank

On February 15, 2026, the government adopted Government Decision No. 3882 regarding the Renewal of Settlement of Land Title in Area C (Hebrew). Settlement of land title, i.e., the process of officially registering land ownership, is a final and irreversible step with profound implications, designed to lock land titles in the occupied territory. This is one of the most consequential measures taken by Israel in recent decades, aimed at applying Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank while stripping Palestinians of their property rights. It is a breach of the provisions set in international law and the law of occupation, which prohibit making permanent, irreversible changes to occupied territory.

The government adopted the decision shortly after the HCJ dismissed a petition filed by Yesh Din, ACRI, Bimkom, and HaMoked against an earlier Security Cabinet decision (Hebrew), from May 2025, to renew settlement of land title in the West Bank. As grounds for the dismissal, the Court noted in its judgment of January 27, 2026 that the petition was premature and speculative, based on its finding that the Cabinet decision was a preliminary stage and that no steps that could result in irreversible damage had yet been taken. As noted, about two weeks later, the Security Cabinet adopted an operable decision that laid out a plan and a budget. The plan’s key provisions are:

1. Official renewal of settlement of land title in Area C and legislative changes: The government instructs the military commander in the West Bank to authorize the Israel Land Registry and Settlement of Rights Authority in the Ministry of Justice to carry out a full settlement of land title process in Area C. This officially lifts the freeze on land registration laid out in a 1968 military order.

2. Establishment of a dedicated government-military system: An inter-ministerial body, led by the Ministry of Justice Land Registry and Settlement of Rights Authority, will be established. The effective transfer of powers to the Israeli Ministry of Justice eliminates, de facto, the administrative separation between Israel proper and the territories it occupies.

3. Targets and timetable: The government set a target for registering at least 15% of all unregistered land in Area C by the end of 2030. The entire process is expected to take about 30 years. In other words, the Government of Israel does not foresee an end to the occupation, in fact, quite the opposite. The explanatory notes to the government’s decision state that settlement of land title work can begin while the new system is being established (a process expected to take about 18 months), with funding already allocated for the operational phase in the 2026 budget.

4. Funding and personnel: The state is allocating about 244 million ILS (~ 86.41 million USD) over four years, during which it plans a fast-track to register about 15% of unregistered land.

Further reading:

Yesh Din, Update and Analysis: The Cabinet Approved a Series of Dramatic Annexation Decisions, February 10, 2026

Bimkom-Planning and Human Rights: Israel’s Takeover of Area B: de-Facto Annexation in the Contractual Reserve, January 2026

Yesh Din, Annexation Legislation Database

Yesh Din, GOI Decision to Renew the Land Rights Registration Process in the West Bank is a Breach of International Law, Reflects Israeli Sovereignty Over the Territory and Will Lead to Mass Violation of Palestinians’ Rights, February 16, 2026

Bimkom-Planning and Human Rights: Israel Moves to Resume West Bank Land Registration: A Precursor to Annexation and Land Grab

Outpost legalization and settlement development

The current Israeli government has made it its mission to expand the settlement enterprise as much as possible, while pushing Palestinians into ever-smaller areas. Since its formation, the government has announced the establishment of 102 new settlements, an increase of 80%, given that the number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank before it took power was 127. Some of these new settlements are outposts that will be retroactively approved; some are effectively neighborhoods of existing settlements and will receive independent status; and some are entirely new.

According to Peace Now figures, in April 2026, there were 156 outposts and 204 farm outposts (also referred to as shepherding outposts) in the West Bank, 91 of which were established in 2025 and 25 in 2026. According to Peace Now’s count, these figures include about 33 outposts that have been retroactively approved and about 48 that are in the process of approval. According to a report by Kerem Navot and Peace Now, at the end of 2024, these outposts and farms already controlled about 786,000 dunams, which is 14% of the total area of the West Bank. Outposts, including farm outposts, are being established throughout the West Bank, including in Area B. The seizure of land and the establishment of the outposts usually come with systematic harassment of Palestinians in the area and the displacement of dozens of local communities and shepherding clusters, home to thousands of Palestinian men, women and children, mainly in the Jordan Valley, South Hebron Hills and near the area of the contractual nature reserve.

Although outposts are established without approval and in violation of the law, according to the testimony of a military officer included in an investigative report (Hebrew) aired by the Israel Broadcasting Corporation in December 2025, some of the farm outposts were allegedly established with the military’s knowledge and in coordination with it, by order of the GOC Central Command, Avi Bluth. According to an April 2026 report in Haaretz, Bluth himself said in a closed forum that 150 farms had been established in coordination with the military. However, even when outposts are established without the military’s knowledge, once they are up, they receive protection from the military, which assigns considerable personnel to this task.

The government encourages the establishment of outposts by various means. For example, as early as February 2023, the Security Cabinet issued a decision that permits connecting outposts to infrastructure and constructing public buildings even before they are retroactively approved, provided they are designated as “sites for regularization.” In other words, the government permits and funds the construction and infrastructure that by law require a building permit, even in places without master plans (i.e in violation of the law) and even without a proper decision to establish a settlement or neighborhood. Since this decision was adopted, dozens of outposts have been designated as “sites for regularization” and now receive funding, infrastructure, and civilian services from the State. This occurs despite the fact that many of these outposts do not meet the basic criteria for regularization, such as outposts that are not adjacent to their parent settlement, or those located inside a firing zone, in an environmentally sensitive area, or within a no-building zone along a main road.

As part of the drive to retroactively approve outposts and turn them into official settlements, municipal jurisdictions were drawn for 17 new settlements in the second half of 2025. In March 2026, the GOC Central Command signed off on municipal jurisdictions for eight additional settlements. In addition, seven settlements that had previously been regularized as neighborhoods of existing settlements received independent status in 2025, a step that allows increased state funding.

Retroactively approving outposts and turning them into official settlements with a municipal jurisdiction exacerbates and entrenches the infringements on the rights of local Palestinians in different ways, including: curtailment of their freedom of movement; denial of access to the agricultural land and grazing areas absorbed into the new settlement jurisdiction; and, when it comes to privately-owned land, violating their property rights.

Kanfei HaShachar and Metzokei Ha’aretz, two outposts currently undergoing retroactive approval as official settlements, were established on the ruins of the displaced communities of ‘Ein Samia and Mu’arrajat Center, respectively. This new trend demonstrates how settler violence and government actions work together to achieve a shared purpose: to permanently force out Palestinian communities from the areas where they have lived for decades and increase Jewish presence in the West Bank.

Expanding Jewish control in the West Bank is also carried out through the expansion of existing settlements. According to Peace Now figures, in 2025, about 15,700 new housing units were approved in existing settlements. In addition, more than 12,000 additional housing units are in various stages of planning. Meanwhile, the local Palestinian population suffers from systematic discrimination in terms of obtaining building permits and connections to infrastructure.

In a high-profile case, at the end of April 2026, Israeli authorities approved plans to build 126 housing units in Sa-Nur, a settlement dismantled as part of the Disengagement Plan in 2005. The Security Cabinet adopted a decision to re-establish the settlement in May 2025. On April 19, 2026, 16 families took up residence at the site in a publicized event attended by ministers and members of Knesset. An order for the seizure of more than 500 dunams of private land was signed by the GOC Central Command back in December 2025, for purposes of building a roughly six-kilometer-long access road to the settlement.

Further reading:

On decisions to draw municipal jurisdictions and their implications for Palestinian residents, see: Aqraba Municipality and Bimkom-Planning and Human Rights, Objection to municipal jurisdiction plan, March 2026 (Hebrew)

Bimkom-Planning and Human Rights and residents of al-Funduqumiyah, Objection to Plan No. 108/2 for the Settlement of Sa-Nur, March 2026 (Hebrew)

E1 development plans – “Greater Jerusalem”

The development plans approved in 2025 include two in the area known as E1 near the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. The plans cover an area of about 2,100 dunams and allow for the construction of about 3,400 housing units, while completely disregarding the Palestinian communities living within and around the area included in the plans. The sites are separated from Ma’ale Adumim by a highway (Route 1) and removed from its current urban fabric, indicating that this is not a natural outgrowth of Ma’ale Adumim. The main purpose of these plans is to create a continuous strip of Jewish settlement between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, carving the West Bank into two separate parts connected by a single, narrow access road. If implemented, the plan would create an Israeli-only zone in the heart of the West Bank, as all Palestinian communities in the area will be forced out, and Palestinians will be denied access to it. This step joins a slew of measures that deepen Israeli control over “Greater Jerusalem” (Hebrew), i.e the West Bank areas surrounding the city, and lead to the removal of Palestinians from the area. They include plans to build roads that will serve settlements and further fragment Palestinian space, roadblocks on routes serving Palestinian traffic, the declaration of new Seam Zone areas, and new stay-permit requirements.

A petition against the statutory validation of these plans is pending before the Jerusalem District Court. Filed by Ir Amim, Bimkom and Peace Now, via counsel, Adv. Michael Sfard, the petition has been consolidated with other cases brought by local Palestinian residents. However, in the absence of an injunction, in December 2025 the government issued a call for tender submissions to implement the plan.

Further reading:

Bimkom-Planning and Human Rights, The E1 Development Plans: Meaning and Implications

Ir Amim, 2025 in Review: Israel’s Policy in East Jerusalem - Deepening Annexation and Displacement, January 2026 (Hebrew)

Archaeology as a tool for control and annexation

During the period covered in this report, the Israeli government continued to use archaeological sites as a tool for advancing Israeli control in Area C and even for extending powers into Areas A and B. These efforts violate the rights of local Palestinian communities. They are a blatant breach of international law and effectively nullify the Oslo Accords insofar as they relate to archaeology.

After the Security Cabinet decided in July 2024 to grant the Civil Administration certain powers regarding antiquity sites in Area B of the West Bank, in February 2026, the cabinet adopted a decision to permit enforcement also at archaeological sites in Area A. This came as part of a broader decision that authorized Israeli authorities to carry out enforcement in the fields of water management and environmental matters in addition to archaeological sites.

In addition, a bill that seeks to transfer jurisdiction over antiquities from the Civil Administration to a new statutory authority under the Ministry of Heritage passed its first reading on May 11, 2026. This is another step toward annexation, consistent with the general trend described in this report of shifting powers from the Civil Administration to Israeli civilian authorities. If enacted, management of antiquities in the West Bank will effectively be nationalized. The bill and the Cabinet’s decisions contravene international law.

The aforementioned bill and Cabinet decisions were preceded by a string of directives to develop archaeological sites throughout the West Bank in a manner that ultimately pushes nearby Palestinian communities out of much of their living spaces and blocks their access to farmland and the sites themselves. For instance, in Sebastia, the entire site and large areas around it were expropriated. The site is slated to become a tourist attraction under Israeli management, a move expected to negatively impact the livelihoods of local Palestinian residents, who heavily rely on tourism at the site. The expropriation of the Sebastia area is the largest land expropriation for archaeological purposes since 1967 and joins 60 other archaeological site declarations by the Civil Administration in the summer of 2025. Most of the declarations concern sites in the Nablus area in the northern West Bank. Emek Shaveh cautioned that these orders, pertaining to sites that form a circle around the city of Nablus, may be a first step toward future development that could ultimately cut off Nablus from the Palestinian communities around it.

Further reading:

Emek Shaveh, Unprecedented Annexation Move: Knesset Committee Votes to Establish a Civilian Authority to Govern Antiquities in the West Bank, February 4, 2026