Israeli occupation authorities issued a new military order on Sunday to seize 208 dunams of Palestinian‑owned land in the Tubas governorate, in the northeastern West Bank, further expanding long‑standing Israeli control over large areas of the northern Jordan Valley under the pretext of “military purposes.”
Mutaz Bisharat, the official in charge of the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission in Tubas, said the order targets land located within natural basins 230, 235, 237, 238, 253, 254, and 255.
The order authorizes the army to take possession of the land immediately and annex it to an existing military site.
According to the Commission, adding the newly seized 208 dunams to the current military zone raises the total area confiscated by Israel in the same location between 1979 and 2026 to 1,292 dunams.
The Commission noted that the northern Jordan Valley has faced continuous land seizures, military orders, and movement restrictions aimed at tightening Israeli control over strategic agricultural and grazing areas.
Residents of Tubas and the surrounding communities say the decision is part of a familiar pattern: Israeli authorities issue military orders, declare land as “closed military zones,” and later expand nearby colonial outposts or military installations.
Palestinian landowners in the affected areas were informed that their land is now designated for military use—a classification that historically results in long‑term dispossession, the prevention of agricultural access, and the gradual expansion of Israeli sites.
Human rights organizations have long documented that Israel frequently uses “security” and “military training” claims to justify land seizures in the Jordan Valley, even as Palestinian communities face home demolitions, movement restrictions, and the loss of farmland essential to their livelihoods.
These policies, they say, are designed to consolidate Israeli territorial control and weaken the Palestinian presence in one of the West Bank’s most fertile and strategically important regions.
The latest order adds to a growing list of Israeli measures across the occupied West Bank, where land confiscation, settlement expansion, and military restrictions continue to reshape Palestinian rural areas and undermine the ability of communities to remain on their land.
