On Sunday, Israel's security cabinet approved the expansion of government powers in the occupied West Bank. In areas controlled by Tel Aviv, the construction of Jewish settlements and the purchase of real estate are to be simplified – something that has been prevented until now by the laws of neighboring Jordan.
The Arab kingdom was created from the same entity as the Jewish state – their common predecessor was the British Mandate of Palestine-Transjordan. In 1948, after the creation of Israel, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, together with Egypt, waged war against the new country and occupied the territory of today's Transjordan.
Therefore, Jordanian laws were applied in this territory, which, among other things, prohibited non-Muslims from buying real estate in cities such as Bethlehem, Jericho, and Hebron. In the latter city stands a complex known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which the Israeli government took over in a statement on Sunday.
The curtailment of Palestine
As Defense Minister Yisrael Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrichpointed outin a joint statement, the decision of the inner cabinet "aims to remove decades-old obstacles, repeal discriminatory Jordanian legislation, and enable the accelerated development of settlement in this area."
Particularly suspicious is the signature of the radical finance minister, who himself comes from the illegal Jewish settlement of Chispin in the Golan Heights region. Under international law, the settlement is illegal, but Israel legalized it under its own system when it annexed the originally Syrian territory in 1981.
Smotrich is also seeking to legalize the settlements across the board as minister, with the security cabinet lifting the secrecy of the list of land and property owners in the West Bank. The names of Palestinians who own land in the occupied territory will no longer be kept secret, and ethnic Jews will be able to approach them directly with business offers.
Until Sunday, Israelis could only buy land through registered companies, explained the Times of Israel, adding that the inner cabinet had essentially allowed private individuals to purchase land as well.
"This measure will allow Jews to buy land in Judea and Samaria in the same way they buy it in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem," the ministers said, using the Jewish name for the West Bank.
Escalation
In addition, the ministers expanded security powers in Zones A and B, which make up 18 and 22 percent of the West Bank. According to the definition of the secondOslo Agreement (1995), Zone A is closest to a kind of Palestinian independence, as security control and civil administration are subject to the Palestinian Authority as the highest national authority.
In Zone B, the Palestinian state also has civil control, but security is provided by Israeli forces, including the army and police. Zone C is under direct Israeli occupation, and since Sunday, the security cabinet has extended its regime to the other two zones.
For now, ministers have reserved "supervisory and enforcement powers" in the area of violations of laws on the protection of water resources, archaeological sites, and pollution.
On the same day, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement condemning these actions by the Israeli government as "illegal and invalid" and asked the United States and the UN for help in stopping their implementation.
Abbas' statement was quoted by the Palestinian state agency WAFA, according to which the Palestinian Authority "warned against the danger of any violation of Islamic and Christian holy sites, stressing that any violation of the Ibrahim Mosque and the transfer of power over it are unacceptable."
The presidential office used the Islamic name for the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where, according to Hebrew tradition, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried with their wives. Construction in Hebron had to be approved by the local municipality and the Palestinian Civil Administration, but from now on it will be approved by the "defense establishment," the Israeli Times noted.
The expansion of Israeli authority over Palestinian territory has also been condemned by Hamas, which opposes Abbas' Fatah movement. However, both have fought and continue to fight against the occupation of the Jewish state – which, on Hamas' side, has resulted in war in the Gaza Strip.
"We call on the Arab and Muslim nations to fulfill their historic responsibility and stand up against the occupation and its grand plan to annex the West Bank," declared the nationalist militant movement, calling on Arab and Islamic countries to "sever relations with the Zionist entity and expel its envoys from countries that have established relations with it."
Hamas called on Palestinians in the West Bank to start "an uprising in the West Bank and Jerusalem" and "escalate the conflict with the occupation and its settlers by all available means to prevent the annexation, Judaization, and displacement projects." The Times of Israel noted that Hamas also uses the term "settlers" to refer to Israeli citizens.
Fortifying the temporary border
Against the backdrop of another growing crisis, Channel 12 television revealed information that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had concealed from the chief auditor. On October 1, 2023, he ordered his advisers and security commanders to "maintain the status quo" with Hamas.
On Thursday, the multiple-term prime minister published a list of his statements addressed to Hamas, which allegedly prove his "aggressive" approach to the Palestinian group. However, Channel 12 discovered a recording of a government meeting on October 1, less than a week before the attack on southern Israel, in which Netanyahu pushes for the preservation of economic incentives—money flowing through Qatar.
Representatives of the Israeli army and agencies such as Mossad and Shin Bet recommended the "elimination of Hamas leaders," which Netanyahu rejected, according to the recording. Instead, he advised commanders to "focus on the [Palestinian] leadership in the West Bank."
"The prime minister expressed great appreciation to all security services for their efforts to maintain calm on all fronts... and emphasizes that we must act with restraint to calm the fronts and prevent escalation," Israeli television quoted from the protocol.
Netanyahu, however, showed statesmanship when he recommended to ministers that, instead of escalating tensions with Hamas, they normalize relations with Saudi Arabia — mutual recognition, the establishment of diplomatic corps, and the signing of the Abraham Accords were on the agenda just a few weeks before the war began.
A few weeks after the attack on the Nova festival and kibbutzim in the south of the country, the Israeli army entered the Palestinian enclave. This led Riyadh to reject the Abraham Accords.
The war in the Gaza Strip has been going on for more than two years and four months, resulting in the deaths of more than 81,000 people on the Palestinian side. The numbers are regularly updated by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas, but international humanitarian organizations consider them reliable.
On the second anniversary of the start of the war, the United States, Turkey, Egypt, and Qatardrew upa peace plan, which Israel and Hamas approved on October 10. Since the ceasefire was established, both sides have repeatedly violated it. However, an important step in the peace process is the establishment of the so-called yellow line, which marks a demilitarized zone along the Gaza border.
Hamas's combat capabilities remained within this line, which, according to the US plan, were to be disarmed, for which they were allegedly offered safe passage. However, the militants have not yet laid down their arms, as a result of which the announced transition "to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction," as announced by US envoy Steve Witkoff at the World Economic Forum, is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
Trump's 20-point plan envisaged massive investment in the reconstruction of the devastated enclave with the aim of establishing a "Middle East Riviera." The Israeli army was to hand over control to international forces under the control of Trump's Peace Council, which was to include Turkey and Qatar – something Israel did not agree to, as a result of which the composition of these forces is still unknown.
After the deployment of the international contingent, Israeli forces were to withdraw to a kilometer-wide perimeter along the Israeli-Gaza border. However, after the ceasefire was announced four months ago, Hamas focused on suppressing domestic resistance, killing the commander of the Popular Brigades, Yasser Abu Shabab, and escalating the conflict with the Dogmush clan militias.
The unwillingness of Palestinian nationalists to lay down their arms, however, is sufficient justification for the Israeli army not to withdraw to the next proposed line and to continue its occupation of almost half of the Gaza Strip.
"As long as our enemies in Gaza still plan to regain their power, we are doomed to continue maintaining ground forces surrounding Gaza," Orit Miller-Katav, a researcher at the Institute for Middle East and Asian Studies at Ariel University, told the Times of Israel.
After the return of the last body of hostage Rana Gvili last week, Netanyahu declared that Israel would not relinquish security control over Gaza without Palestinian disarmament. "Israel will maintain security control from the river to the sea," he said, referring to the Palestinian slogan.
The soldiers were visited in December by Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, who indicated that the yellow line was becoming the new border. "We will not allow Hamas to reestablish itself. We control a large part of the Gaza Strip and we stand along [strategic] lines," he said during a tour of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya. "The yellow line is the new border, the forward line of defense for communities and the line of attack," he added.
Miller pointed out that "colored lines" often become borders in the Middle East. She cited Israel's own border as an example—the so-called Green Line, which was reached by the Jewish state's forces during the 1949 armistice and which Tel Aviv has not yet approved as a state border.
Similarly, the Jewish state does not have a border with Lebanon, but a blue line, which is the border of the 2000 ceasefire as established by the UN. Israel is thus outlined by such "colored" lines, while all of them are subject only to a ceasefire without a definitive peace.
The White House is planning the first meeting of the Peace Council, established by US President Donald Trump and created at the end of January to oversee the temporary administration of Gaza, for February 19 in Washington.