Israel Issues 49 Military Orders to Seize Thousands of Dunums of Agriculture in the West Bank

On Sunday, July 12, seven Palestinian citizens were injured,  bruised, and suffocated, as a result of a violent attack carried out by settlers on the residents in the village of Huwara in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, while the Israeli occupation forces carried out raids and arrests of nine citizens in Hebron and Tulkarm.

This coincided with the revelation of the revelation of the Democratic US Congressman, Ro Khana, that he was assaulted and detained by settlers armed with American-made rifles in the Hebron area two days ago.

According to the Palestinian News Agency,  a number of settlers attacked the Jabour family while its members were in their land near their home in  the village of Huwara, severely beating them and spraying poison pepper gas at them, which led to the injury, bruising and suffocation of seven citizens, including two children and the elderly, who were transferred to Yatta Hospital for treatment, while the occupation forces arrested three young men from the same family.

In Tulkarm, local sources reported that the occupation forces arrested six citizens after raiding and vandalizing their homes in the suburb of Thanaba and the town of Deir al-Ghussoun, and among the detainees was the freed prisoner Wadih Muhammad Hadid.

U.S. Congressman Detained

In a prominent development reported by the Hebrew "Channel 12", US House of Representatives member Ro Khanna (Democrat of California) confirmed that settlers armed with American-made M4 rifles blocked his way and detained him and his companions for more than an hour in the Hebron area to prevent him from seeing the repercussions of the occupation, and insulted them, kicked the tires of his vehicle and caused material damage to them without sufficient intervention by the occupation army.

Khanna is one of the prominent progressive voices who led a movement last January with 74 members of Congress against annexation of the West Bank, and is a potential candidate for the 2028 US presidential election.

In the same context, the Israeli police reported that settlers attacked a CNN press team with knives and batons, in the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, and punctured the tires of their vehicle.

Statistical data from the Palestinian Government Contact Center and the Commission for Resistance to the Wall and Settlements showed a serious escalation in attacks, as settlers carried out 3,488 attacks during the first half of 2026.

Statistics indicated that from October 8, 2023, until June 29, the army and settlers' attacks in the West Bank resulted in the death of 1,179 Palestinians and the injury of about 13,000 others, in addition to the arrest of about 24,000 citizens, while the "Peace Now" movement estimates the number of settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem at about 750,000.

49 Israeli military orders to seize Palestinian land

On the other hand, the Commission for Resistance to the Wall and Settlements revealed in a statement that the Israeli authorities have issued 49 military orders since the beginning of this year under the name of "orders to take security measures", targeting an area of up to 2093 dunums of Palestinian land.

The Authority explained that these orders impose broad physical and legal restrictions that prevent owners from cultivating or accessing their lands freely by uprooting and pruning trees and plantations to secure the settlement movement network around roads, military sites and checkpoints, which results in a form of "functional takeover" and effective control without the need for an official transfer of ownership.

The Commission cited a numerical comparison that highlights the acceleration of this policy, as the occupation issued 47 orders targeting 1613 dunums during the entire past year, compared to 49 orders in the first six months of this year alone. One of the largest of these decisions was Order No. (63/26), which targeted 164.6 dunums of land in the towns of Marda, Askaka and Salfit in the northern West Bank, with the aim of removing the dense tree cover surrounding the settlement of "Ariel" to expand its visual and security area, and to impose a spatial separation that isolates Palestinian villages from their vital agricultural extensions.

The "Security Orders are the latest flexible and deceptive legal tool applied by the Israeli government to re-engineer the area surrounding settlements in the West Bank. Its danger lies in turning the absence of subsequent agricultural exploitation (resulting from the denial of access to the people from entering their lands) into an official legal pretext for confiscating them in their entirety in the future and turning them into security installations or effectively annexing them to the established settlements, thus reducing the geographical and agricultural space available to Palestinian communities.