Israeli occupation authorities have seized 694 dunams of Palestinian land belonging to the towns of Kafr Thulth in Qalqilia, in the occupied West Bank’s northwestern part, in addition to Deir Istiya and Bidya in the Salfit governorate in the central West Bank, marking one of the most significant recent land appropriations in the area.
Moayyad Sha’ban, head of the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission, said the seizure was carried out under what Israel labels “state land,” describing the move as a dangerous escalation in Israel’s long‑standing policy of territorial appropriation.
He stated that the decision reflects a systematic effort to forcibly reengineer Palestinian geography through colonial legal frameworks designed to strip Palestinians of their land.
Sha’ban explained that the newly seized area is part of an Israeli plan to establish a new colonial bloc east of Qalqilia, specifically south of the illegal Karnei Shomron colony, under the name “Dorot.”
He noted that the announcement relies on a network of unilateral military orders and administrative procedures that disregard Palestinian property rights and violate international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from seizing land or altering its legal status.
He emphasized that Israel’s “state land” declarations are not technical or administrative measures but a central tool in the Israeli colonial project, used to eliminate Palestinian ownership and prepare the land for future settlement expansion as part of a creeping annexation strategy.
Sha’ban warned that the announcement comes at a politically dangerous moment, as Israeli legislation, structural plans, land‑seizure orders, and tenders for the construction or expansion of colonies converge into a single system aimed at imposing irreversible facts on the ground and transforming the occupation from a temporary situation into a permanent regime of coercive control.
He added that the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission is pursuing the case on all legal and field levels and will support affected residents while exhausting every possible legal avenue to challenge the decision, alongside exposing these policies before the international community and relevant UN bodies.
The official concluded by stressing that Palestinian land is not an administrative dispute but an inherent right of a people living under occupation.
Attempts to legitimize land theft through announcements and military orders, he said, do not alter the reality that what is taking place is organized colonization, which requires a responsible international response beyond silence and symbolic condemnation.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
