Military Order to Seize Land
On Tuesday, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Authority revealed that the Israeli army issued a military order to expropriate approximately 26.5 dunams of land from three towns northwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, with the aim of creating a corridor serving settlement. The Authority stated in a statement reached by Anadolu that the military order, numbered "t/48/26", was issued on October 28, 2026, and includes land in the towns of Deir Nisam, Umm Safa, and Atara, in favor of a corridor named "Atarot Emergency Corridor – Neve Tsuf".
Details of Areas and Classifications
It added that the order is valid until the end of 2028 and grants the military commander exclusive possession of the land located on the path specified in the attached maps, placing a strip of land from the three towns under military control. According to the Authority, the targeted area includes 5.891 dunams classified by Israel as "state land", accounting for about 22.3 percent of the total area, while 20.582 dunams fall outside this classification.
Implications of the Settlement Corridor
It stated that this distribution reflects the use of land classifications and military expropriation orders to provide a path serving the settlement infrastructure, by annexing land classified as "state land" to a path that also extends through land outside this classification. The Authority warned that the implications of the corridor are not limited to the area of land covered by the order, but extend to its potential role in strengthening the connection between settlements and outposts in the vicinity of the "Atarot" and "Halamish" settlements, also known as "Neve Tsuf".
Escalation of Attacks and Warnings
It added that this connection would facilitate the movement of Israeli settlers and consolidate their presence among Palestinian towns, with the possibility of imposing additional restrictions on landowners' access to adjacent plots, according to the order's implementation arrangements. It emphasized that the order regulates possession and custody for a specific period and does not transfer land ownership per se, but considered that the use of military powers to serve settlement connectivity raises questions about their use to solidify the settlement infrastructure and expand control over it.
Since the start of the Israeli genocide war in Gaza in October 2023, attacks by the Israeli army and settler terrorism in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have escalated. These attacks include killing and arresting Palestinians, demolishing homes and structures, burning mosques and vehicles, clearing agricultural land, preventing farmers from accessing their fields, displacing Palestinian communities, alongside settlement expansion. Palestinians warn that these practices pave the way for Israel's formal annexation of the West Bank, undermining the chances of establishing an independent Palestinian state, according to relevant UN resolutions.
Source: Anadolu Agency
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