The measures approved by the Israeli Government this Sunday to expand its control over the , which it occupies, have raised alarm among the international community and legal experts, who consider it a “de facto annexation” of some of its areas.
“They compromise the well-being of Palestinians, forcing them to abandon their lands and depriving them of their properties. They also do not respond to an essential need for Israeli security. On the contrary, they serve a project that illegally benefits Israeli citizens to the detriment of Palestinians,” Eitan Diamond, an expert at the International Center for Humanitarian Law (IHL, in English), explained to EFE.
This battery of measures clashes with the and allows, among other things, Jews to freely buy land in the occupied West Bank after revoking a 1953 Jordanian law that prevented it, as well as the opening of property registries to facilitate the sale, the expansion of Israeli control over Hebron and the creation of parallel local governments for settlers.
Measures that consolidate occupation
Diamond, an expert in International Law, highlights that Israel’s presence in the West Bank was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, which supported a 2024 resolution of the UN General Assembly, which demanded Israeli withdrawal by September 2025.
“Instead of ending Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, these measures consolidate it,” the lawyer maintains.
“Rather than ending Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, these measures consolidate it”
The UN and the International Court of Justice consider the West Bank a territory under occupation and give Israel the status of an occupying power.
According to this expert, the occupation law (the set of rules of international humanitarian law that regulates the temporary administration of a territory by a foreign power) is based on the premise that occupation situations are temporary and force the occupier to administer the territory for the benefit of its civilian population.
Since it has no sovereignty over the territory, the occupying power must refrain from introducing legislative changes that favor its own nationals in the occupied territory.
The specialist details that the measures are not justified under the exceptions allowed by this set of rules, which only allow legislative changes when they are essential to fulfill the occupant’s obligations, maintain order or guarantee their safety.
Overriding Jordanian law and making it easier for settlers to buy land, Diamond warns, contravenes these principles and puts at risk fundamental rights, such as “housing, property, freedom of movement” and “self-determination” of the Palestinian population in the West Bank.
This expert adds that the measures represent a “de facto annexation” of increasing areas of Palestinian territory by transferring powers from the Palestinian Authority to the Israeli Civil Administration, which contravenes the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
In the same sense, the Palestinian Authority warned that these measures represent progress in Israel’s attempt to annex the territory, Jordan warned that they have the objective of imposing its sovereignty and the European Union highlighted that they violate the .
A Palestinian woman leads her children away from a group of Israeli soldiers in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on January 24, 2026.
The Israeli thesis
In contrast, Eugene Kontorovich, director of the Middle East Center at George Mason Law School in the US, maintains that Israel would have the right to repeal Jordanian legislation because the West Bank would be “disputed territory.”
“If Jordan was authorized to enact a law prohibiting Jews from buying land, then Israel can certainly cancel it,” he tells EFE, arguing that the territory never officially belonged to the Jordanian state.
Its approval comes after the debate in October 2025 in a commission of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) of a project to formally annex the West Bank.
The initiative, promoted by Avi Maoz of the far-right Noam party, proposed applying Israeli law, administration and sovereignty over the entire Palestinian territory.
A project that was strongly opposed by US President Donald Trump, with whom Netanyahu plans to meet this week in Washington.
However, the approval of these measures by the Israeli cabinet will allow their application without the need to be approved by Parliament, something that, according to one of its promoters, the far-right Finance Minister, stated this Sunday, will take place before the national elections in October 2026.
