Tel Aviv
—
The Israeli government has advanced the registration of territory in the occupied West Bank as state land in a move that Palestinians have decried as “de facto annexation.”
For the first time since Israel occupied the territory in 1967, the government will create a mechanism to officially register large swaths of land under the state.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry defended the move as an “administrative measure” which would “bring order” to land registration. But government ministers made clear the intent was to increase settlement and entrench Israel’s grip on the land.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalal Smotrich said the land…