Annexation Through Law: Land Registration and Palestinian Dispossession in the West Bank

Analysis by Alaa Mahajna examining Israel’s February 2026 land registration decisions in Area C of the occupied West Bank, arguing that large-scale land registration constitutes a mechanism of de-facto annexation, not administrative reform. The piece covers February 8 and 15th decisions which allow land Palestinians cannot prove ownership of to be automatically registered as “state land” available for Jewish settlement, the legal prohibition of land registration under military occupation, historical land laws under Ottoman, British, and Jordanian rule and Israel’s use of those laws as a form of dispossession, the burden of proof on Palestinians to produce historical records, implications for Palestinians in the West Bank and the broader political trajectory towards annexation of Area C. This source is incredibly valuable for research on West Bank annexation, historical rule of Palestine, the Israeli legal system, post-Oslo period, and Israeli military occupation.