The Israeli government has approved a plan to begin land registration in the occupied West Bank, meaning it will be able to seize land from Palestinians who cannot prove ownership. For the first time since Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, it will register such land as property of the state also known as settlement of land title in Area C of the occupied West Bank.
The Byzantine-era church lies half hidden in the shade. Roman columns rise from among the olive trees, even older ruins linked to Israelite kings are overgrown. To the west, the Mediterranean is just visible on the horizon. To the north and south are the hills of the occupied West Bank. In the small town of Sebastia, a hundred metres or less east of the ruins, everyone is very worried.
A football pitch used by refugees in the occupied West Bank has been saved from demolition after an intervention by the president of Uefa, Aleksander Ceferin. A decision to stop plans to remove the pitch in the Aida refugee camp outside Bethlehem was taken by Israeli security forces on Tuesday after an international campaign for its preservation. Ceferin is understood to have held three telephone conversations with the Israeli Football Association (IFA) to discuss the issue of the Aida pitch during the past week, with the IFA relaying the concerns to security services.
We are in the so-called southern region of Hebron, which has been under a curfew since dawn, Nassar said. There is an intensive deployment of occupation forces including bulldozers and tracked armoured vehicles. We witnessed tracked armoured vehicles the last time we saw these in Hebron was during the second Intifada during [Israeli] Operation Defensive Shield, he said, noting the significance of the heavy equipment.
Israeli forces have begun demolishing dozens of buildings housing Palestinian families in the northern occupied West Bank, forcing mass displacement as winter sets in, and leaving communities scrambling for shelter. Israeli military bulldozers and cranes tore through residential blocks in the Nur Shams refugee camp on Wednesday, flattening homes that housed about 100 families. Thick clouds of dust rose over the camp as residents watched from a distance, according to an AFP news agency journalist at the scene.
The Israeli government has approved the formalisation of 19 so-called settlement outposts as independent settlements in the occupied West Bank. This is the third wave of such formalisations this year by the government, which considers settlement expansion and annexation a top priority. During an earlier ceremony of formalisation, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, We are advancing de facto sovereignty on the ground to prevent any possibility of establishing an Arab state in [the West Bank].
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that a joint operation involving Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, and the Israel Border Police had begun "in the area of northern Samaria," using the Israeli biblical term for part of the West Bank. "IDF and ISA forces will not allow terrorism to take root in the area and are acting proactively to thwart it," the IDF said in a statement on X.
