The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey have condemned Israel's move towards designating parts of the occupied West Bank as “state land”.
The Israeli government on Sunday approved a plan to allow land registration in the West Bank for the first time in decades.
The Arab and Islamic nations described the move as a “grave escalation aimed at accelerating illegal settlement activity”.
A joint statement issued by their foreign ministers on Tuesday said they “strongly condemn the decision issued by Israel to designate lands in the occupied West Bank as so-called 'state land' and approve procedures for the registration and settlement of land ownership across extensive areas of the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967”.
“This illegal step constitutes a grave escalation aimed at accelerating illegal settlement activity, land confiscation, entrenching Israeli control, and applying unlawful Israeli sovereignty over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and undermining the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people,” they said.
The Palestinian Presidency warned that the move “signals the beginning of the implementation of annexation plans”.
Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said the move amounts to an Israeli takeover of about 50 per cent of the West Bank. “Any land Palestinians cannot prove ownership of under the state’s strict evidentiary requirements – and they won’t be able to – will be declared 'state land',” the group said.
The land settlement processes were likened to those undertaken in East Jerusalem, which, unlike the West Bank, is fully under the control of Israeli law. Less than one per cent of decisions taken there have led to land being registered to Palestinians.
Such processes had been banned in the West Bank under a military order after Israel occupied the area in 1967.
Sunday’s approval clears the path for that order to be lifted, which aims to “consolidate control over the occupied land, thereby undermining the two-state solution, eroding the prospects for the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian State”, said the foreign ministers.
The approval also comes a week after Israel’s far-right government revealed measures that embolden settlers and make it easier for Israelis to buy Palestinian land in the West Bank. The decision also led to condemnation from Arab states.
The UAE on Wednesday chaired an emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo to discuss a response to Israel’s move.
Most world powers deem Israel's settlements on land it captured in the 1967 war illegal. The UN Security Council has passed several resolutions that call on Israel to halt all settlement activity. US President Donald Trump, Israel's biggest ally, has repeatedly said he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territory is at its highest level since at least 2017, according to a UN report published late last year. Settler violence has also been on the rise, with more than 50 Palestinians injured in Israeli settler attacks in one day last week.
