Olmert: "Israel no longer confiscates land in the West Bank, clear and simple."
(Prime Minister at press conference on March 17, 2008)

Official Declarations
Israel has on many different occasions, over the last years, declared that it would no longer confiscate land from Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared in December 2003: "Israel will keep all of its promises regarding construction in the settlements. There will be no construction beyond the existing construction lines, no land confiscation for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements." (Sharon at Herzliya Conference, December 18, 2003).
Officially spokespeople reiterated again and again that even if there was some sporadic construction in the settlements, the land confiscation had stopped.
Israel declared it would not seize new lands; any further construction in the settlements would only take place on land Israel had already confiscated in the past.

Confiscations Discovered by Peace Now
In 2008 Peace Now’ in depth investigation has discovered that in the last year alone there were at least 4 confiscations of new lands, of total area of 275 dunams.

1. Beitar Illit -- on November 11, 2008 the Civil Administration issued a State Lands Declaration Order for an area of approx 23 dunams of land, belonging to the village of Hussan in the Bethlehem area, near the settlement of Beitar Illit.
Fifteen years ago an Israeli gas station was built on this private land of the residents of Hussan, preventing its owners from continuing to use it. The current declaration aims to retroactively legalize the confiscation originally enacted force and against the law. The declaration order also includes a large area near the gas station, apparently for the purpose of expansion and development.

 The Official Order – (the declaration area in blue): 

2. Efrat -- on July 29, 2008
The Civil Administration issued three orders announcing the registration of land belonging to the village of al-Khadr (Bethlehem area, near the settlement of Efrat), in the name of the Commissioner of Government Property. The total land of the three orders is 90 dunams. The land will now officially become state lands, which in affect means a confiscation of the land. Peace Now has learnt that the land was apparently confiscated in order to build a park for the residents of the settlement of Efrat.

3. Ariel Industrial Area - July 2008 – Declaration of 60 dunams as state land, intended for the expansion of the industrial area of the settlement of Ariel, was finally approved. The approval of the declaration made it possible to complete the expansion of the industrial area by 400 dunams on lands in the area of the Palestinian town of Salfit.

The declaration area and the beginning of the development work in the Ariel industrial area:

4. Kiryat Arba – – in May 2008 a Military Appeals Committee rejected an appeal by Palestinian landowners against the declaration of their private land as state land, in an area north of the Kiryat Arba (Hebron). The two plots of land (plot 20 and plot 26) totaling some 100 dunams are outside the northern fence of the settlement of Kiryat Arba, and hundreds of housing units are planned to be built to expand the settlement. The appeal was submitted by the Palestinian landowners about nine years ago but only recently was the final approval given for the declaration of the land as state land.

Methods of Confiscation:
Over the years Israel has used a number of methods in order to turn West Bank land into "state land," which later serves almost exclusively Israeli settlements.

How does the state of Israel justify and legalize such confiscation of lands?
1. Declaration of state land -- the most common method Israel uses in order to confiscate land is to declare it state land. The method is based on a law from the Ottoman era (from 1858) that allow the Sultan to confiscate land that had neither been planted nor cultivated for three years in a row. Over the years Israel sought out land that was not being cultivated in the West Bank and declared it as state land. In this way Israel confiscated more than 900,000 dunams in the West Bank.
2. Confiscation for public needs -- Israel sometimes also used a confiscation order for public needs in order to take over land. According to the law, the confiscated land should serve the needs of the whole public in the area, including the Palestinian public, and that is why Israel used that method usually in order to pave roads, which it could claim were also going to serve the Palestinians. This kind of confiscation order cannot be used in order to build an actual settlement, because the public for which the settlement is intended is the public of the occupying power and not the entire public in the area. Nonetheless, as far as we know, confiscation for public needs was used in order to build the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim.
3. Initial registration -- another option the State has is to begin a process of registering the land in the name of the State in the land registry. The process of land registration can take a long time if there are land owners who claim ownership, and then the parties have to prove ownership in a long and drawn out process. The only case Peace Now knows of in which the procedure of initial registration of land was used as a means to turn land into state land is the case cited above, of the three orders issued in July 2008 for the purpose of expanding the settlement of Efrat. It is possible that the authorities chose the registration procedure instead of the declaration procedure to try to avoid what could be perceived as a "confiscation," and to claim that it was "merely" a standard administrative procedure to register the land.
4. Seizure for military needs -- another way to take over land is by issuing a seizure order for military needs. It is important to note that a seizure order does not change the status of the land or transfer ownership rights to the State, but only the rights to use the land for a limited period of time that appeared in the seizure order, and only for military needs. At the end of the military need the land is supposed to revert to it owners. In the past, seizure orders for military needs were used widely in order to build settlements but in 1979, following the Elon More petition to the High Court of Justice, the use of seizure orders in order to build settlements was forbidden. Many seizure orders continue to be issued for the construction of the separation fence and various military facilities throughout the West Bank.
5. Absentee lands -- a special order gives the State the power to manage the properties of people who fled the West Bank in 1967, and actually to occupy them until they come back. The order allows the commissioner of governmental and abandoned property to lease and even sell the land. As far as we know such properties were used for settlements mainly in the Jordan Valley area, but we do not know on what scale and where.