Palestinian citizens of Israel protest rising violence, government inaction outside the Knesset [GETTY]
The Israeli Knesset’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday approved a draft bill that would allow Israeli settlers to buy land in the occupied West Bank.
The “Elimination of the Discrimination in the Purchase of Real Estate in Judea and Samaria” bill, previously proposed by Bezalel Smotrich, was introduced by Moshe Solomon of the Religious Zionist Party in November. Instead of being referred to the Knesset for a vote, it was revisited on Sunday.
The bill, endorsed by 40 of the Knesset’s Land of Israel Lobby members, will be presented to the Israeli parliament for a first reading.
The bill would make it easier for settlers to buy property without supervision or restrictions. Israeli settlers are not allowed to purchase land directly in the occupied region as per Jordanian law that was applied to the area after Israel occupied it in 1967.
However, a military commander bypassed the law four years later, allowing settlers to indirectly buy land with companies registered with the Civil Administration in the West Bank.
According to Israeli rights group Peace Now, the bill will allow settlers to become “landlords” in the occupied West Bank, opening the door to “questionable deals and forgeries”.
“This is yet another annexation move initiated by the messianic right,” Peace Now said in a statement.
“The bill would give a small number of extremist settlers the ability to acquire land and later establish settlements, whether in the heart of Hebron or anywhere else and drag the IDF to risk soldiers’ lives and protect them.”
The rights group also noted the Knesset has no authority to legislate laws for areas that are not under Israeli sovereignty, and to apply these laws to the occupied territory constitutes “a blatant violation of international law”.
Under international law, annexation is illegal. However, Israel’s blatant disregard for the law sees the state claiming dunams and dunams of land for settlement purposes. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have seized at least 27,000 dunams (27 square kilometres) of land.
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, and there are currently over 700,000 settlers living illegally across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The occupied West Bank has also witnessed a dangerous surge of settler violence, with over 1,860 settler attacks taking place from October 2023 to December 2024 – an average of four attacks a day, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Over 870 Palestinians, including 177 children, have been killed in attacks by the Israeli army and settlers across the West Bank.
