In a statement, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the decisions would make it easier for Jewish settlers to force them to give up land to Palestinians. file | Image Credit: Reuters
Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday (February 8, 2026) approved measures aimed at deepening Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and weakening the already limited powers of the Palestinian Authority.
Right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s office said in a statement that the decisions would make it easier for Jewish settlers to force them to cede land to Palestinians, saying, “We will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.” Yonatan Mizrachi, a researcher at the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now, called the decision “very significant.” The decision still needs approval from Israel’s top commander in the West Bank, he said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a statement, called the decision “dangerous” and “an open Israeli attempt to legitimize settlement expansion” and land seizures. He called on the United States and the UN Security Council to intervene immediately.
Jordan’s foreign ministry condemned the decision as “aimed at imposing illegal Israeli sovereignty” and securing settlements.
These measures include lifting the ban on West Bank land sales to Israeli Jews, declassifying West Bank land registry documents to facilitate land acquisition, transferring construction projects at religious and other sensitive sites in the volatile city of Hebron to Israeli authorities, and allowing Israeli enforcement in Israeli environmental and archaeological matters.
The measures would revive a committee that allows the State of Israel to make “preemptive” land purchases — “a step to guarantee land reserves for future generations to settle.”
Peace now Commentators issued late Sunday (February 8, 2026) called the decision aimed at “breaking through all possible barriers on the way to massive land acquisitions in the West Bank”. Notably, it said Israeli authorities would be able to demolish construction in Palestinian-controlled areas if it was deemed harmful to heritage or the environment.
The West Bank is divided between Israeli-controlled sections, where settlements are located, and parts of the Palestinian Authority that are autonomous, equivalent to 40% of the territory.
Palestinians are not allowed to sell land privately to Israelis. Settlers can buy homes on land controlled by the Israeli government.
Asked about settler claims that the current system discriminates against Jews, Mizrachi said the entire system in the West Bank discriminates against Palestinians who are not allowed to vote in Israeli elections and face Israeli military repression and travel restrictions.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future state. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Mr. Smotrich, formerly a firebrand settler leader and now finance minister, has been given cabinet-level authority over settlement policies and has vowed to double the settler population in the West Bank.
Settlers group Regavim, in a statement, praised Sunday’s decision, which will protect heritage sites in the West Bank and make the land registry accessible and transparent “in the long run.”
In December, Israel’s cabinet 19 approved the proposal for new Jewish settlements The government pushes ahead with a construction binge in the West Bank that further threatens the possibility of a Palestinian state. And Israel has cleared the final hurdle A government tender reported in January would effectively cut the West Bank in two before construction on a controversial settlement project near Jerusalem begins.
Published – February 09, 2026 at 04:06 am IST
