LONDON: A new Israeli government decision to complete land registration across East Jerusalem by 2029 is raising alarm among rights groups and legal experts, who warn it could accelerate the loss of Palestinian property on an unprecedented scale.

Government Resolution No. 3792, announced in early February, expands resources for Settlement of Land Title procedures and formally integrates the Custodian of Absentee Property as an implementing authority.

Critics say the move could reshape land ownership in the city for decades to come.

The measure marks the first Israeli government decision devoted specifically to advancing land title settlement in East Jerusalem and the first to designate the Custodian of Absentee Property as an implementing authority with a dedicated budget.

Rights organizations say the policy carries significant risks for Palestinian residents. Architect and urban planner Sari Kronish said the current phase does not differ from previous SOLT procedures. In practice, however, the pattern of registrations has been telling.

“If we look at the blocks that have been completed versus those in process — and those that could be completed — we see that until now they have mostly been registering open land for use as new settlements,” Kronish, who directs the East Jerusalem department at Bimkom — Planners for Planning Rights, told Arab News.

She warned that the next phase could have a broader impact on Palestinian communities.

“As if that is not bad enough, the next phase seems to include many more blocks that include Palestinian homes — in Beit Hanina and Shuafat, Wadi Hilwe, Sur Baher and more,” Kronish said.

Data compiled by Bimkom illustrates the scale of the process since 2018. At the time of writing, procedures had been completed for 49 blocks totaling 2,286 dunams (228.6 hectares), while 186 blocks covering 6,149 dunams (614.9 hectares) were still in progress, according to the organization’s SOLT tracking website.

About 85 percent of the land settled between 2018 and 2024 was registered in favor of the Israeli state or settlers, while roughly 1 percent was registered to private Palestinian landowners.

The locations of many SOLT proceedings also underscore those concerns.  

Israeli rights group Ir Amim says the process has advanced in areas where new Jewish settlements are planned or under construction, including Atarot, Givat Hamatos, Nof Zahav, Nofei Rachel and Umm Lison, where plans call for roughly 20,500 housing units.

In other instances, SOLT has been implemented in densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods, where residents were unaware that legal proceedings were taking place and later faced eviction or property confiscation.

Ir Amim warned that Resolution 3792 places Palestinian communities at an “unprecedented risk” of dispossession and displacement. If implemented as planned, it is likely to accelerate “irreversible facts on the ground.”

Gaal Yanovski, project coordinator at Ir Amim, said in a statement: “Israel is once again exploiting land settlement procedures to advance large-scale land confiscation in East Jerusalem.

“The formal inclusion of the Custodian of Absentee Property makes clear that SOLT is being used to serve the settlement ambitions of the current government, at the direct expense of Palestinian communities.

“This process must be halted before entire neighborhoods lose their land and homes,” he added.

Palestinian officials and civil society groups have voiced similar concerns, arguing that the resolution could accelerate broader political and territorial changes.

In a Feb. 3 statement, the Jerusalem Governorate described the decision as “the most dangerous settlement step since the occupation of the city in 1967,” calling it a shift from gradual land confiscation to what it characterized as a final, documented transfer of ownership to the Israeli state and its institutions.

Similarly, the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem warned that legislative and administrative steps in recent years have aimed to “codify and legalize the process of annexation” through the seizure of remaining Palestinian property.

Zakaria Odeh, the coalition’s executive director, said the new measure would speed up land title settlement procedures and, in turn, what he described as Israel’s de facto annexation of occupied East Jerusalem.

“The issue of land settlement is not new,” Odeh told Arab News. “Since the occupation of Jerusalem and other occupied Palestinian territories, the Israeli government froze the process of property registration.”

He noted that Israel’s Justice Ministry announced in 2018 that registration would resume, with implementation beginning in 2019 and 2020. At that stage, he said, the process focused mainly on areas with claims of Jewish ownership or ongoing legal disputes between settlers and Palestinian residents.

Progress was gradual, he added, with only “about 15 percent registered by 2025.”

East Jerusalem covers about 72,000 dunams (7,200 hectares) of the West Bank, annexed by Israel in 1967. At the time of annexation, about 69,000 Palestinians — roughly 26 percent of the city’s residents — lived in East Jerusalem in approximately 12,000 housing units.

Following annexation, Israel carried out extensive land expropriations to build settlement neighborhoods on the Palestinian side of the Green Line, the 1949 armistice boundary separating Israel from territories held by neighboring Arab states.

In areas not expropriated, Jordanian land registration procedures were frozen, leaving many parcels in legal limbo.

By 2018, just before SOLT procedures were renewed, Palestinian neighborhoods accounted for about 49,000 dunams (4,900 hectares) of land.

On May 11, 2025, Israel’s Security Cabinet decided to relaunch land registration in the occupied West Bank, a process that had been frozen since 1967.

Odeh warned that the government’s recently stated goal of completing SOLT by 2029 would “sharply accelerate registration” and “increase state control over land.”

He said: “The Israeli government’s recent decision to allocate large budgets, open offices, and expand staffing in the Israeli land registry will escalate and accelerate the settlement process, and consequently the confiscation of land and control over it.”

Indeed, Resolution 3792 allocates about 30 million Israeli shekels — about $9.7 million — over four years to complete SOLT across East Jerusalem.

It also expands staffing in multiple state bodies, including the Land Registration Authority, the Israel Land Authority, the Survey of Israel and the Custodian of Absentee Property — a mechanism the Civic Coalition says plays a central role in transferring land from Palestinian ownership to state control.

Odeh described the Custodian’s expanded role as “the most dangerous aspect” of the measure.

“Under Israeli law, property whose owners are not recognized as Jerusalem residents can be classified as absentee property and transferred to the state,” he said.

“This means that if there is a family of seven people, all officially residing in the city and holding Israeli residency, and even if one of them is not resident or not present in Jerusalem, that person’s share goes to the Israeli government.”

All Palestinian ownership claims submitted through the SOLT process must be reviewed by the Custodian, who is empowered to seize land deemed absentee property.

As a result, Ir Amim says, Palestinians face a “catch-22” — filing a claim risks confiscation, while refraining from filing can allow the state to register land as state property by default.

The Custodian operates under the authority of far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by several Western governments for incitement of violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

Kronish said the Custodian had previously played a formal role but is now receiving significantly greater resources.

“Apparently, this is what they needed in order to be able to advance blocks with many Palestinian homes,” she said.

“All along,” she added, “we have been saying that SOLT cannot be a fair process as long as the Absentee Property Law is enacted in tandem.”

Another obstacle, Odeh said, is the lack of documentation among many Palestinian residents. “British rule, then Jordanian rule, and afterward Israeli rule led to the dispersal and disappearance of documents,” he said.

Transparency is also a concern. Kronish said many residents are unaware that proceedings affecting their property are underway. Even when they are informed, she said, the underlying legal framework leaves them with few viable options.

In an analysis published on Feb. 15, Bimkom said the process “operates within a discriminatory legal system with no transparency,” effectively functioning to “strip Palestinians of their property rights rather than secure them.”

However, Kronish stressed that even when the residents are aware of what is happening, “the crux of the problem” remains the Absentee Property Law, not the lack of transparency.

“Most people will have to make a tough choice between participating — assuming they are notified — and risking losing some or all of their land rights or not participating and then losing their land,” she said.

Israeli officials, however, frame the decision and the broader land registration drive as administrative and developmental measures intended to regularize ownership and enable economic growth.

They argue that clear land titles are necessary for urban planning, infrastructure investment and access to mortgages.

Israel also maintains that the decades-long freeze in land registration left many parcels in legal uncertainty, preventing residents from obtaining building permits and formal recognition.

Resolution 3792 builds on a 2018 government decision known as the Plan to Reduce Socioeconomic Gaps in East Jerusalem, which was declared following a controversial law declaring that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country.

The new decision advances during an election year in Israel and alongside parallel West Bank initiatives to expand land registration and bolster the Custodian of Absentee Property.

Nevertheless, rights groups, including Bimkom, argue that the policy violates international law, deepens the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and undermines prospects for a political resolution, while infringing on Palestinians’ rights to property, development, and self-determination.

In a July 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and called on Israel to halt settlement activity and end its occupation as soon as possible.

Although the opinion is not legally binding, it carries significant political weight.

However, on the ground, the dispute over land is already translating into displacement, and eviction looms for more than 1,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem, according to UN figures, paving the way for settler organizations or state-backed projects.

Evictions have accelerated in neighborhoods such as Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, where hundreds of residents face court-ordered removal.

In December, Israel’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by residents seeking to prevent the eviction of 32 households in Silwan, affecting more than 130 people, The Times of Israel reported.

At the same time, Israeli authorities continue to demolish Palestinian homes built without permits — permits that residents and rights groups say are nearly impossible to obtain — further displacing families and deepening housing insecurity across East Jerusalem.

In the first weeks of 2026 alone, about 170 Palestinians were displaced after their homes were demolished for lacking Israeli-issued building permits, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The figure follows a record year in 2025, when more than 1,700 Palestinians were displaced in East Jerusalem and Area C under similar circumstances.