West Bank

Israel Expropriates Nabi Samwil Antiquity Site Currently Managed by the Muslim Waqf

The Israeli Civil Administration issued an expropriation order to seize the Nabi Samwil antiquity site, located just north of Jerusalem’s municipal boundary in the Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil. The seizure order affects a mosque that is currently managed by the Palestinian Authority’s Muslim Waqf, marking the first time Israel has unilaterally taken control of a holy site owned by the Waqf. In addition to the mosque, Israel has expropriated the archaeological site around the mosque, a spring, agricultural lands, and access roads leading to the area – a total of 109.79 dunams (27 acres).

The Civil Administration explained it was seizing the site “for the public benefit, for the purposes of undertaking a development project to preserve the archaeological site of the Prophet Samuel’s tomb,” claiming that there are safety issues in the compound. Israel is advancing development plans for several other significant antiquity sites that have been under Palestinian control across the West Bank, most notably Sebastia.

Peace Now said in a statement: 

“Once again, we find ourselves confronting decisions by the Civil Administration, operating under Minister Smotrich, that are intended to expand and deepen annexation. From plans to expand settlements and unprecedented declarations of ‘state land,’ the Civil Administration has moved on to taking control of heritage sites and is now appropriating religious sites, creating tension in some of the most peaceful and sensitive places in the West Bank. The messianic agenda of the Israeli government should have been stopped long ago. Instead, each passing day appears to further endanger us and create the conditions for transforming a political conflict into a religious war.”

The Palestinian village of Nabi Samwil  is located on a strategic and highly prized hilltop (inside of an area Israel post-facto declared a national park) just outside of the municipal borders of Jerusalem but on the Israeli side of the separation barrier — placing residents (who have West Bank ID cards) in a Kafka-esque situation wherein they are cut off from both Jerusalem and the West Bank (legally they are forbidden from taking the one road out of the village into Jerusalem, since they are West Bankers, and the West Bank is accessible only via a circuitous route that passes through an Israeli checkpoint – for background see: The Palestinian village where Israel forbids everything). The suffocation of Nabi Samwil is in line with Israel’s long-time ambitions to completely de-populate the village and take control of the land.

 

Israel Takes Another Step Towards Forcible Transfer of Khan Al-Ahmar

Ir Amim reports the Civil Administration issued a seizure order for a strip of land running through the Khan al-Ahmar bedouin community’s land to enable the construction of a new water line between two nearby settlements, Mishor Adumim and Kfar Adumim. The seizure order was issued the same day, May 19th, that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to move forward with the long-stalled forcible transfer of Khan al-Ahmar.

Ir Amim further details:

“Moreover, the water line is clearly not intended to serve Khan al-Ahmar or other Palestinian communities in the area. It is rather designed to upgrade infrastructure for the settler population in the E1/Maaleh Adumim area. Since Kfar Adumim is already connected to water infrastructure, the new line likely indicates preparations for the expansion of Kfar Adumim and/or other nearby settlements.”

 

Bibi Requests Review of Annexation via Antiquities Bill

The Times of Israel reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed his Cabinet Secretary to prepare a comprehensive review of a bill to annex antiquity sites in the West Bank and Gaza. Bibi’s request might be intended to delay or scuttle the bill, which has faced heavy international criticism in addition to opposition by Israeli legal advisors and defense experts. Just this week the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee Legal Adviser Tami Sela wrote a position paper criticizing the bill saying that it “contradicts” international law, specifically with regard to the bill’s application to Areas A & B in the West Bank and to Gaza. The Israeli army has also expressed opposition.

In addition to fast-tracking a bill to create an Israeli civilian authority to control antiquity sites in all areas of the West Bank and Gaza, the Israeli government is simultaneously proceeding with the appointment of a new head of the Israel Antiquities Authority that is both unqualified and clearly political. A group of 60 archaeologists petitioned the Knesset this week to block the appointment.

 

Israel Launches Online West Bank Land Registration System

On May 27th the Israeli government launched an electronic registration system for the “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” for Area C of the West Bank. The online system is an instrument for the implementation of a February 2026 decision by the Israeli Security Cabinet to publish the West Bank land registry and to revive a “State Land Acquisition Committee.” These moves are best understood as a way to annex the West Bank, to help facilitate settler claims over disputed and/or unregistered land, and to spur the proactive government purchases of West Bank land for the purpose of settlement expansion. 

The Palestinian Authority urged Palestinians to withhold information from Israeli entities working on the registration system, which Birzeit University’s Institute of Law argues consolidates Israeli dominance, marginalizes the Palestinian Authority, legitimizes settlement expansion, and creates irreversible facts on the ground.

Following the Security Cabinet’s February 2026 decisions, the full Israeli Cabinet quickly approved the decisions and allocated a four-year, $78 million (NIS 244.1 million) budget to establish a mechanism (with up to 35 employees) for updating the records in Area C of the West Bank. The Israeli Justice Ministry is tasked with carrying out the land registration process, effectively transferring sovereignty over Area C from the Israeli military to Israeli civilian governance, clear annexation. According to Peace Now, the process of land registration in Area C carried out will lead to the wide scale dispossession of Palestinians from the area. The Cabinet set a target goal of completing the land registration process for 15% of Area C within the next five years.

Yara Asi explains for the Arab Center DC:

“Israel’s February 2026 decisions mark a turning point in the governance of the West Bank. While presented as administrative measures, they collectively restructure land, authority, and law in ways that extend beyond the logic of temporary occupation. Through land registration, control is converted into ownership; through governance reforms, Israeli authority is extended across territorial lines; and through judicial changes, the limited constraints on these processes are further weakened. Together, these developments reflect a shift from managing occupied territory to integrating it into Israel.

This transformation carries significant legal and political implications. By embedding control within legal and institutional frameworks, these measures reduce the prospect of reversal and reshape the conditions for any future political settlement. In this sense, they illustrate a broader strategy of annexation through law—one that proceeds without formal declaration yet produces many of its defining effects.”

Itay Epshtain posted on X:

“The system, codenamed “Grenade”, was launched this morning and openly endorsed by Ministers Smotrich and Strook as “a central pillar in applying sovereignty in the territory and strengthening our hold and roots in Judea and Samaria.”

The candor is striking. What was once advanced incrementally, is now pursued through digitized cadastral engineering. A land registry presented as bureaucratic modernization is, in substance, an instrument for the consolidation of unlawful territorial acquisition.

International law is neither ambiguous nor silent. An occupying Power is prohibited from annexing occupied territory, permanently appropriating public or private property outside the strict limits of military necessity, or altering the legal status of the territory under occupation. Yet this is precisely what is now occurring, in broad daylight, through administrative and technological means designed to render unlawful presence increasingly irreversible.”

As a reminder, only one-third of West Bank land was registered and titled (under the British Mandatory government and then continued by Jordan) when Israel seized control of the West Bank and froze land registration proceedings. The publication of the West Bank land registry is something the settlement movement has pushed for in order to be able to identify landowners in all areas of the West Bank and approach them for purchase, which – with the repeal of the ban on the sale of land to non-Arabs – settlers can now do outright. Opening the land registry will help facilitate settler claims over disputed and/or unregistered lands, making Palestinians vulnerable to further settler harassment regarding the sale of land.

As reported by Israel Hayom in 2020, the Israeli land registration process would first require a survey of the land, after which time anyone claiming ownership could present documents to the Israeli government seeking to prove their ownership. In the case of land where Israel recognizes no valid ownership claims – including cases where Palestinians do not have documentation that Israel will accept – Haaretz has previously reported that the process gives heavy weight to whomever currently controls the land (e.g., if a settler has built illegally on Palestinian land and lived there, under the protection of the IDF, the process will give weight to their claim absent overwhelming documentation, accepted by Israel, from the Palestinian owner). The registration decisions can be appealed, but once the claims are resolved by an Israeli official appointed to oversee the process, no further appeal is possible. Moreover, all “unclaimed” land – that is, land over which Israel does not recognize any legal ownership, will automatically become “state land.

Shlomo Zacharia, a land lawyer working with Yesh Din, further explained how the process of Israeli-controlled land registration will dispossess Palestinians, saying:

“If a village has 30 plots, with [specific, documented] ownership claims on only 20 of those, the other ten automatically transfer to the state. If you haven’t filed a claim of ownership, it goes to the state. Period. The arrangement will primarily benefit the Civil Administration and the settlers, since most of the land allocated by the state goes to settlers, and because the arrangement process (in Israel and the West Bank) favors the person holding the land in practice.”

 

Israel Seizes  Area A Land Inside Jenin for Army Base

972 Magazine reports the Israeli army seized land inside of the Palestinian village of Jenin, on a hilltop overlooking the Jenin refugee camp, in order to establish an army base. Dror Etkes (Kerem Navot) reports the seizure order coupled with newly paved military roads nearby suggest Israel has plans to establish a large military base there, marking the first time since the signing of the Olso Accords that Israeli seized land in Area A for a military base. Etkes ties the move to the broader Israeli government move to expand settlements around the Jenin area. Etkes says:

“There are more than 100 new settlements [including outposts] in the West Bank, and 15 in the Jenin area alone,” he said. “This is not just going back to the four settlements dismantled in 2005. It is something much larger. This is [Israel] reestablishing a military presence in the Jenin area, The only reasonable interpretation is that it is directly related to the biggest settlement boom in the West Bank…The aim is to strengthen the settlements that already exist along these routes, effectively surrounding Jenin and disconnecting it from its immediate rural surroundings. These are methods that we recognize from settlement expansion patterns elsewhere.”

Bonus Reads

1. “Humanitarian Situation Report | 25 May 2026” (OCHA)
2. “Pastoral Settlement: Dispossession, Forced Displacement and the Erosion of Livestock-Based Livelihoods in the Context of Eid al-Adha” (Balasan Initiative, 5/26/26)
3. “The Four Steps Israel Is Taking to Clear Palestinians From West Bank’s E1 Area” (Haaretz, 5/27/26)
4. “’They stole our sheep, killed my son’: Israeli settlers, soldiers attack and loot West Bank villages” (Middle East Eye, 5/27/26)
5. “In West Bank, Latest Victim of Israeli Settler Violence Shocks in a New Way” (New York Times, 5/22/26)
6. “Likud minister says resettlement of Gaza should be on party’s official election platform” (The Times of Israel, 5/26/26)
7. “Smotrich’s Bid for Political Survival Relies on Bribing Israeli Settlers” (Haaretz, 5/28/26)
8. “Israel Has Physically Divided Gaza With Over 25 Kilometers of Earthen Barriers” (Drop Site, 5/25/26)