Annexation and structural changes to Israeli control
- acri-rights
- Nov 27
- 11 min read
The violations of Palestinians’ rights in the West Bank described in this section are linked to or stem directly from Israeli government policy designed to expand and further entrench its control over the area.
Since the establishment of Israel’s 37th government, and more forcefully under the cover of the war, the West Bank has undergone sweeping structural changes. Through a slew of bureaucratic measures and the transfer of broad powers from the military (responsible for managing Palestinian civilian life via the Civil Administration) to civilian authorities directly controlled by the Israeli government, Israel has shifted away from a system of military occupation, which is meant to follow the international law of occupation, toward a regime of de facto annexation governed by the political interests of the Israeli government. Meanwhile, the apartheid regime that extends privileges and immunities to settlers and strips the protected residents of the Occupied Territories of their rights has grown more conspicuous. As of this writing, it is unclear whether the government’s declarations regarding formal annexation have been shelved for now. However, it is important to stress that, in terms of legal structures and activities on the ground, Area C of the West Bank has already been annexed in practice, even without a formal decision to apply sovereignty.
In his capacity as Minister within the Ministry of Defense, Bezalel Smotrich has consolidated vast powers over the administration of civilian life in the West Bank. By appropriating these powers, Smotrich has become, in effect, the minister in charge of annexing the West Bank, leading structural, legal, and bureaucratic changes aimed at expanding control and applying Israeli sovereignty to the area. Smotrich established a new agency, the Settlement Administration, within the Ministry of Defense that is subordinate to him. This government agency oversees most aspects of civilian life in the West Bank, thus divesting the Civil Administration of its original responsibilities. Additionally, an Israeli civilian has been appointed as Deputy Head of the Civil Administration. The deputy no longer answers to the senior military officer heading the Civil Administration, but instead reports directly to Minister Smotrich. This subversion of the Civil Administration and the transfer of its powers to civilian officials is viewed as an intermediate step toward dismantling it altogether. In September 2024, Yesh Din and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to cancel these appointments and the transfer of powers. In response, the government announced a partial rollback of the extensive authorities granted to the minister in July 2025. However, the dangerous process of imposing foreign civilian rule in the West Bank continues. The petition remains pending.
The government is also seeking to weaken the military legal advisor for the West Bank by transferring authority to non-military legal advisors within the Ministry of Defense. This measure, too, seeks to alter the legal framework of Israel’s rule in the West Bank, shifting it from a temporary military occupation to permanent civilian control.
In July 2025, the Knesset overwhelmingly passed a declaration calling for the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. While declarative, the statement is highly significant and reflects strong parliamentary support (71 MKs in favor, 13 opposed).
In addition, the government is taking steps, detailed below, to expand and strengthen Jewish presence in the West Bank. These include the announcement of 22 new settlements (49 in total since the government’s formation), the legalization of existing unauthorized outposts and the establishment of new communities; continuing legalization for 63 unauthorized outposts erected in violation of the law and connecting them to infrastructure to enable their formalization and expansion; advancement of legislation that eases settler acquisition of land in the Occupied Territories; removal of barriers and acceleration of approvals for building, expanding, and developing settlements; accelerated road development serving the settlements; major increases in funding for the settlement project; and a cabinet decision passed in May to renew Settlement of Land Title in the West Bank, all in clear violation of numerous provisions of international law.
These structural changes, along with other government actions, are acutely felt throughout the West Bank, infringing on the rights, daily life, future prospects, and security of Palestinian residents.
For more see: Annexation Legislation Database, Yesh Din websiteThe Silent Overhaul: Changing the nature of Israeli control in the West Bank, joint report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Breaking the Silence, Ofek, and Yesh Din
Establishment and retroactive approval of illegal outposts
Over the past two years, Israeli citizens have established dozens of new outposts in areas populated by Palestinians, without government authorization but with its support. Their aim is to seize land in the West Bank and expand Jewish control. According to Peace Now, 32 new outposts were established in 2023, at least 61 more in 2024, and by September 2025, an additional 68 outposts had been set up, with the number continuing to grow. According to military data, the number of outposts has quadrupled since the start of the war, from 30 before October 2023 to about 120 by July 2025.
A report by Peace Now and Kerem Navot found that by the end of 2024 shepherding outposts controlled roughly 786,000 dunams (approximately 194,225 acres), 14% of the West Bank. A total of 35% of this area is privately-owned Palestinian land. Most outposts are established in Area C, but in 2024, settlers began setting up outposts in Area B as well.
The establishment of outposts typically involves building new roads, some on privately-owned Palestinian land, and fencing off open areas to deny access to local Palestinians. Though illegal, these actions are often carried out with a military escort and met with no real intervention by law enforcement. In many cases, settlers in outposts take over large swaths of land by constructing unauthorized structures, grazing livestock over broad areas, appropriating water sources, and attacking local communities.
Most of the funding for outposts is provided without transparency, yet there is abundant evidence of financial support coming through various channels: government ministries, affiliated agencies, state-funded organizations, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund, and others.
Of the 22 new settlements approved by the Security Cabinet in May 2025, 12 are unauthorized outposts established in recent years that will now be retroactively approved. In April 2024, Minister Smotrich issued orders to have 68 unauthorized outposts connected to infrastructure and receive municipal services. They include both outposts on the path to becoming official settlements as they undergo regularization, and outposts with no legal pathway to regularization.
Settlement expansion: state land, building plans, and infrastructure
According to Peace Now, in 2024 the Israeli government declared 24,258 dunams (approximately 6,000 acres) as state land. In total, since the current government was established, about 25,959 dunams (approximately 6,415 acres) have been declared as state land, roughly half of all state land declarations since the Oslo Accords. Theoretically, this land cannot be used for private needs, as state land is meant to serve the public at large. However, past experience demonstrates that nearly all state land is ultimately allocated to settlement development.
Additionally, in 2024, building permits were issued for 1,165 housing units in settlements. Meanwhile, according to Civil Administration Data provided to Bimkom, just three permits were granted to Palestinians out of the 1,111 building permit applications submitted by Palestinians living in Area C.
In August 2025, twenty years since planning began and following a four-year freeze, the Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council approved two highly contentious building plans in the area known as E1, totaling more than 3,400 new housing units. These plans will split the northern and southern West Bank, and cut off the north from East Jerusalem. The Israel Land Authority, meanwhile, published tenders for 3,300 more units south of E1, linking the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone.
Israeli construction in E1 amounts to the displacement and forcible transfer of Palestinians from the area. It creates contiguous settlement corridors stretching from the heart of the West Bank to Jerusalem, which will significantly hinder any future two-state solution, a key motivation for approving the plans. In October 2025, impacted Palestinian communities, as well as Ir Amim, Bimkom, and Peace Now, filed court petitions to have the plans revoked.
As a complementary step to further strengthen the settlement enterprise, the Ministry of Transport is allocating major funding to large-scale road and transportation infrastructure projects throughout the West Bank, which serve as another tool for deepening Israeli control and attracting more Israelis to settlements. Many of the new roads are designated as bypass roads, a euphemism for roads intended to serve only settlers’ needs. These road systems further the inequality between settlers and Palestinian residents and increase the fragmentation of Palestinian space. Alongside state-mandated infrastructure development, settlers also build unauthorized roads, some on privately-owned Palestinian land.
Planning, building and house demolitions
Shortly before leaving his post, GOC Central Command, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox pointed out that, while the number of illegal structures built by settlers in the West Bank increases, enforcement policies are discriminatory, with over-enforcement against Palestinian construction and under-enforcement against Jewish construction. Maj. Gen. Fox warned that such discriminatory enforcement creates a potential security risk.
A review of Civil Administration data, as analyzed by Bimkom, reveals a massive growth in building plans for settlements, vis-à-vis an almost total lack of planning for the Palestinian population. Between 2021 and 2024, only one plan for an existing Palestinian village was approved, consisting of about 170 housing units, as well as a handful of localized plans for a very small number of units. In the same period, plans were approved for 10,945 settler housing units. Palestinians submitted roughly 5,070 building permit applications in those years, a significant increase over previous periods, but only 22 were approved, less than half a percent. By contrast, building permits were issued for 9,385 housing units in settlements.
This same policy, which encourages Jewish construction while prohibiting it for Palestinians, is reflected in demolitions of permit-less construction. In 2024, 946 demolition orders were issued against Palestinian structures built without permits and 862 were carried out, a 91% enforcement rate. In comparison, while 280 demolition orders were issued for buildings in settlements and outposts, only 39 demolitions were carried out - a rate of just 14%.
These trends align with the Israeli government’s open policy of encouraging Jewish settlement of the West Bank while pushing Palestinians into increasingly smaller areas.
For further analysis, see Bimkom – Planning and Human Rights, Israel increases use of planning to deepen West Bank apartheid: 2021-2024
Assumption of demolition powers in Area B, the Accords Reserve
The Israeli government is seeking to expand its enforcement powers against unauthorized construction into Areas A and B, where it has no planning authority.
On July 18, 2024, the Military Commander in the West Bank issued a proclamation stripping the Palestinian Authority of planning and building powers in an area known as the Accords Reserve, despite the fact that it is located in Area B. The Accords Reserve stretches over roughly 167,000 dunams (approximately 41,267 acres), or about 3% of the West Bank. According to the Oslo Accords, planning and building powers in this area rest with the Palestinian Authority (PA), although the PA is obligated not to approve construction within it. On the same day, an Order regarding Restricted Construction was issued as well, declaring all construction in the reserve after October 23, 1998 (the date of the Wye River Agreement that established the reserve) as illegal. The order also sets procedures for addressing unauthorized construction and requirements for new building permits. Soon after, the Civil Administration began issuing demolition orders, and by December 2024, actual demolitions had begun inside the Accords Reserve.
In April 2025, an HCJ petition was filed against these orders (HCJ 33808-04-25). While the court did issue an interim order suspending new demolition orders and the execution of existing ones, it has yet to rule on the petition. In early August, the State submitted its position, seeking to revoke the interim order, but it has remained in effect pending a hearing. Meanwhile, despite the order, in early September 2025, a demolition order was issued for a school in Zuweidin, inside the reserve.
Alongside this policy, and particularly since the Gaza war began, several outposts have been established in the area, and settler violence against Palestinian residents has increased.
Resumption of settlement of title and assumption of powers by Israel
The process of formally registering land ownership in the land registry, or Settlement of Land Title (SOLT), was suspended in the West Bank by order of the Israeli military governor in 1968. Since then, there has been no full formal registration; instead, partial substitutes such as internal registration in the Civil Administration have been used. In May 2025, the Security Cabinet decided to renew SOLT procedures and transfer registration authority to the military commander. Settlement of title is an undertaking characteristic of a permanent, sovereign regime, not a temporary administration, which, under international law is required to act only as a trustee and in the interests of the local population. In other words, both the decision itself and its future implementation are sovereign acts and, as such, violate international law, including the prohibition on annexation and the principle of temporariness.
Experience, as well as public statements by Ministers Smotrich and Katz regarding this decision, indicate that this is another significant step towards expanding and formalizing the settlement enterprise, applying Israeli sovereignty, and facilitating the takeover of lands that could not previously be declared state land. The implementation of this decision is expected to serve as another tool for displacing and dispossessing Palestinians with ties to the land and undermining their property rights. The process will deepen institutionalized discrimination in the West Bank by creating a mechanism that prioritizes registration and allocation of lands for settlement expansion over the interests of Palestinian residents. In September 2025, Yesh Din, Bimkom, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual petitioned the High Court to rescind the cabinet’s decision.
Archeology as a tool for dispossession and annexation
Over the past two years, the regulation and management of archaeological sites have increasingly been used as tools to infringe on the rights of Palestinian communities and advance Israeli control and de facto annexation in Area C. The process has seeped into Area B as well. These practices contravene international law and the Oslo Accords.
In July 2024, the Security Cabinet decided to grant the Civil Administration certain powers over antiquity sites in Area B of the West Bank. Similarly, and in line with the broader policy of transferring powers from the Civil Administration to civilian bodies under direct government control, a bill is being promoted in the Knesset to transfer authority over archaeological sites in Area C from the Civil Administration to a government-supervised body. As the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) opposed this measure and refused to take on this responsibility, the possibility of establishing a dedicated body, the Archaeology Administration, for this purpose, is under consideration. Supporters of the initiative have called for this body to cover archaeological sites in Areas A and B. As noted, the cabinet decision and bill are both incompatible with international law.
Orders designating archaeological sites are a frequently-used tool for asserting control over sites, and, gradually, their surrounding areas and access routes. In the summer of 2025, the Civil Administration issued 60 such orders, most in the northern West Bank near Nablus. Emek Shaveh has cautioned that these orders, issued for sites surrounding the city of Nablus, likely mark the first stage of future development that would sever the city from the rest of the vicinity. This tactic is part of a troubling trend seen in recent years that has included decisions to develop sites such as Sebastia and Hebron in ways that ultimately prevent nearby Palestinian communities from accessing their homes and land. Moreover, many of these sites present only Jewish heritage, disregarding thousands of years of history and the presence of other ethnic groups in the area.
Archeological site designations are often made in the traditional living spaces of shepherding communities, further preventing planning and development within them and sometimes serving as a tool for expulsion. The community of Zanuta in the South Hebron Hills, is one example. The Civil Administration refused to recognize the community at its current site on the grounds that it is an archaeological site. Due to the lack of recognition, in combination with settler violence, the community has been repeatedly displaced and its homes demolished. However, following a High Court petition, the authorities were ordered to allow the community to return and submit a plan for the village. The plan was rejected with no pertinent justification, even after residents offered to move all homes outside the archaeological site boundary. In September 2025, with assistance from Bimkom and Hakal – In Defense of Human Rights, the residents submitted another petition and an interim order blocking irreversible actions on the ground was issued.
These trends have not escaped the international community’s notice and were sharply condemned in a report by the independent UN Commission focusing on harm to educational, religious, and cultural institutions in the Occupied Territories.
For further reading on this topic, see:
Emek Shaveh, Cabinet Decision to Allow Israeli Civil Administration Jurisdiction at Heritage Sites in Area B of the West Bank
Emek Shaveh’s response to the UN report: Destruction, Appropriation, and Displacement