Israel just changed how land ownership works in the West Bank. Here’s what that means
A torn Israeli flag on the road to the Mahharza residence in the South Hebron Hills, placed by settlers from an illegal outpost nearby
Qassam Muaddi writes in Mondoweiss on 12 June 2025:
Until last month, Palestinians in the West Bank preserved their land ownership certificates in case their land was claimed by the Israeli state or by Israeli settlers. But a recent Israeli government decision made their lands in the West Bank open to property registration by anybody, including settlers — forcing Palestinians to seek their land ownership recognition by the Israeli state or see the ownership of their lands transferred to Israeli hands.
Earlier this month, the Israeli government approved a decision to resume the land registry process for lands in Area C of the West Bank after decades of freezing. The decision entails grave consequences for Palestinian ownership of land in what constitutes 60% of the West Bank, as it puts an end to the treatment of Palestinian lands in Area C as occupied territory — instead treating them as a part of Israel.
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What the decision means legally
The Israeli government’s recent decision to resume the land ownership registration in Area C considers all PA land ownership titles as “null and void.” This means that Palestinian owners of lands in Area C have no legal proof of their ownership before Israeli government bodies, except their old Jordanian titles, which in many cases don’t include the subsequent generations of heirs. This means that the entire process is automatically set back several decades for Palestinians.
But this decision also has a deep political implication, because Palestinian lands are no longer treated by Israel as militarily-administered lands, as they have been since 1967. Instead, Israel is placing the registration of land ownership in the hands of civil governmental bodies, which is in and of itself a practical implementation of annexation.