The security cabinet of the Government of Israel approved this Sunday a series of measures to accelerate control over the Palestinian population in the West Bank and facilitate the purchase of land from non-Arabs, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defense Minister Israel Katz revealed in a joint statement. The cabinet decided to expand the powers of the Israeli administration in areas that the Oslo Accords reserved for the Palestinian National Authority.
First modification: 02/08/2026 - 21:39
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Israel approved the repeal of a Jordanian law that prohibited the sale of land to non-Arabs in the West Bank, Israeli Finance and Defense Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz reported on Sunday, February 8. "We are deepening our roots throughout the land of Israel," Smotrich celebrated after the security council of Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
The rule that will be annulled has prohibited Israeli settlers from acquiring property in the occupied Palestinian territory since 1953, forcing them to go to companies registered with the Civil Administration, the body of the Israeli Army that governs civil affairs in the West Bank. Smotrich added that the requirements of that body to process purchase permits will also be relaxed.
The cabinet also approved lifting the confidentiality of West Bank cadastral records, which will allow non-Arab buyers to identify owners and contact them directly.
The ministers detailed that the Government will reactivate a state committee, inoperative for almost twenty years, to allow the Israeli State to actively purchase large tracts of land in the West Bank. And it will take control of some religious places, such as Rachel's Tomb, located in Bethlehem.
At the same time, Israel plans to transfer competence in the processing of construction and building licenses in Hebron, today in the hands of the Palestinian city, to the Israeli Civil Administration. This announcement collides with the Hebron Protocol in force since 1997, which protects the second most populated city in the West Bank.
Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist government will also expand supervision and law enforcement in areas under the administration of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on issues of environmental risks, water-related crimes and damage to archaeological sites, the ministers detailed.
None of them specified whether these measures will take effect immediately or if they will be ratified in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. In October, the legislature voted on a bill to facilitate control of the West Bank, which mandated that "the laws, judicial system, administration and sovereignty of the State of Israel apply to all settlement areas" of the occupied territory.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, defined this Sunday the new measures announced by Israel as "dangerous and illegal" and added that they amounted to a de facto annexation. In his statement, cited by Reuters, Abbas urged Trump and the UN Security Council to intervene.
The West Bank is among the territories Palestinians claim for a future independent state. Much of it is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-government in some areas controlled by the PA.
"We will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian State," said Smotrich this Sunday, also a radical settler who is a member of the Israeli Government.
Two years of colonial acceleration in the West Bank
The Israeli Government has accelerated the annexation agenda of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank since the beginning of the invasion in Gaza, after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023.
A United Nations report, cited by AFP, revealed that in 2025 "about 47,390 colonial housing units were advanced, approved or tendered," up from about 26,170 in 2024, the highest level since at least 2017, when the UN began registration.
In this context of violence and complicity of the Israeli authorities, attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank have also multiplied, where dozens of Palestinians have been injured and thousands of displaced people have been reported, in addition to cases of burning of homes and mosques or attacks on flocks with knives.
Israeli authorities demolished 1,768 Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2024, according to UN data compiled by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
For all these reasons, the United Nations accused Israel of practices and "systemic discrimination" in the West Bank similar to "apartheid", in a report from the Human Rights Office on January 7, 2026.
"Israeli authorities treat Israeli settlers and Palestinians residing in the West Bank under two different legal and political bodies, resulting in unequal treatment on a number of critical issues, such as movement and access to resources such as land and water," the UN report details.
In December 2025, Israel authorized the establishment of 19 new colonies in the West Bank. Settlements have grown from 141 to 210, between 2022 and 2025, according to the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now.
The Palestinian presidency, cited by the WAFA agency, assured this Sunday that Israel's new measures in the West Bank violate "all agreements signed between the PLO and Israel, as well as international law and resolutions of international legitimacy."
With Reuters, EFE and local media
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