Photo: Dan Vernon

On 8 February 2026, the Israeli cabinet approved the implementation of a raft of illegal measures aimed at accelerating the unlawful seizure of land in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to entrench and expand Israel’s settler colonial apartheid regime, annex Palestinian territory, and permanently maintain its unlawful occupation. Israel’s Minister of Defence Yisrael Katz and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich clearly explained their annexationist intentions: ‘We are strengthening our grip on the territory and killing the idea of ​​establishing an Arab terrorist state in the heart of the country.’

The measures introduced by the Cabinet aimed at facilitating the appropriation of Palestinian land include the publication of the previously confidential land registry, the alteration of Jordanian regulations in force since prior to the commencement of the occupation in 1967, and the reactivation of Israel’s Land Acquisition Committee to ensure comprehensive appropriation of Palestinian land. Further measures announced – concerning Israeli control over water, religious and archaeological sites – affirm Israel’s intention to act in flagrant contravention of the Oslo Accords.

The announced administrative and legalistic measures, aligned with ongoing campaigns of escalating military and settler violence, are designed to facilitate the rapid appropriation of Palestinian land and forcible transfer of Palestinian families from their homes. Such acts of direct and indirect transfer, not only breach Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, they are intended to prevent the exercise of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and deny the collective right of return.

This latest repressive action by the Israeli government must be understood in light of the widespread and systematic repression of Palestinians across the West Bank including East Jerusalem, which is a part of Israel’s continuing genocidal erasure of the Palestinian people as a whole.

While the forced displacement of Palestinian communities and the seizure and appropriation of their lands are central to the logic of Zionist settler-colonialism, Israel’s conduct in this regard has repeatedly been affirmed as unlawful, yet is permitted to continue and to escalate with impunity. Al-Haq again recalls that in its Palestine Advisory Opinion of July 2024, the International Court of Justice affirmed that:

• Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is, in and of itself, illegal as a violation of the international law of self-determination and the international law on the use of force, including as a violation of the prohibition of annexation through the use of force;

• Given the illegal nature of Israel’s presence in the OPT, all Israeli actions, including administrative or legalistic decisions purporting to determine questions of land ownership, and the full-spectrum of territorial administration matters, are legally invalid as breaches of peremptory norms of international law;

• Israel’s policies and practices in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, constitute a separation, both physical and juridical, between the Palestinian population and the settlers transferred by Israel to the territory, and are in breach of the international law prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.

Central to the Court’s analysis, concluding that the occupation per se is illegal, was the illegality of Israel’s policies and practices, causing the forced displacement of Palestinians. The Court was clear that both the violence of settlers and the Israeli occupation forces, as well as the imposition of discriminatory administrative and legalistic regimes, could lead to illegal forcible transfer, since the absence of physical force does not exclude the possibility that the transfer in question is forcible.

The International Court of Justice’s conclusions in the Palestine Advisory Opinion that Israel’s presence in the OPT is illegal “does not release it from its obligations and responsibilities under international law, particularly the law of occupation, towards the Palestinian population and towards other States in respect of the exercise of its powers in relation to the territory until such time as its presence is brought to an end.” (para. 264)

Under international humanitarian law, Israel is strictly prohibited from alienating public and privately owned lands and natural resources in the occupied territory, which are protected under Articles 46, 55 and 56 of the Hague Regulations, and Articles 33 and 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Further, the deliberate alteration and circumvention of the applicable national laws in the occupied territory, for the purpose of the Occupying Power’s unlawful colonisation of territory, is strictly prohibited under Articles 43 of the Hague Regulations, and Articles 47 and 64 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and amounts to international crimes.

The present announcement by Israel to alter the laws in force in the OPT is clearly another step in the illegal appropriation of Palestinian lands, the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities, and the assertion of domination and erasure by a genocidal apartheid regime over an occupied people.

Al-Haq calls upon all States and international organisations to take concrete actions to:

• Fully implement the recommendations of the International Court of Justice 2024 Palestine Advisory Opinion and 2025 UNRWA Advisory Opinion and bring Israel’s unlawful occupation to an immediate end;

• Implement comprehensive diplomatic and economic sanctions on Israel, a full two-way arms embargo, and a ban on trade in goods and services that sustain the settler colonial apartheid, occupation and ongoing genocide;

• Revoke the status of settler charities and related illegal entities, revoke all benefits and State entitlements to unlawfully present settlers with dual nationalities, and implement legislation to prohibit the sale of settlement goods and services domestically;

• Cooperate in enforcing International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli officials and activate universal jurisdiction mechanisms in national courts to prosecute perpetrators of international crimes;

• Publicly condemn as unlawful Israeli and US sanctions against Palestinian human rights organisations and ensure continued financial and political support for their work;

• Address the root causes underpinning the ongoing Israeli military aggression, including Israel’s apartheid regime since 1948, as a tool of its settler colonialism, and the denial of the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, including their right to return;

• Rescind the UN General Assembly membership rights of apartheid Israel, for its flagrant breaches of Resolution 181 with respect to the status of Palestine and Jerusalem, and Resolution 194 on the return and repatriation of Palestinian refugees, two resolutions which Israel has consistently refused to fulfil since 1948.