Israel Moves to Complete Land Registration in East Jerusalem by 2029, Accelerating Threat of Large-Scale Palestinian Dispossession
On January 18, the Israeli government adopted a major government resolution with a mandate to complete land registration on 100% of land in East Jerusalem by the end of 2029. Officially entitled “Government Resolution No. 3792 for the Registration and Settlement of Land Rights in East Jerusalem,” this marks the first government decision devoted solely to the advancement of settlement of land title in East Jerusalem.
Since 2018, the land registration process, formally known as settlement of land title, has become one of the state’s primary new tools for seizing Palestinian land and expanding Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. The recent government decision allocates new budgets, increases government personnel, and explicitly stipulates the official involvement of the Custodian of Absentee Property, indicating a concerted effort to expand and expedite implementation of the process. As a department within the Ministry of Finance, the Custodian of Absentee Property is directly under the authority of Minister Bezalel Smotrich and has for years been one of the main Israeli bodies behind the transfer of Palestinian lands into state hands.
The formal inclusion of the Custodian in the land registration process raises serious alarm and underscores the government’s intent to accelerate mass land confiscations in East Jerusalem, placing Palestinians at an unprecedented risk of dispossession and displacement. This decision should not come as a surprise given the government’s clear intent to fast-track as many irreversible facts on the ground as possible ahead of Israeli national elections this year.
Exploitation of SOLT for State and Settler Benefit
Settlement of land title (SOLT) is a process by which the state determines and finalizes land ownership rights in a nearly incontestable manner and officially records them in the State’s land registry (“Tabu”). Following the occupation and illegal annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the State of Israel largely froze SOLT procedures due to historical, political, and legal factors, leaving most land in East Jerusalem unregistered. In 2018, the Israeli government formally initiated SOLT for the first time within the larger framework of Government Resolution No. 3790 , which allotted a NIS 2.1 billion investment into East Jerusalem to ostensibly promote socio-economic development. Among the various sectors of investment, the decision included a chapter on SOLT to purportedly aid the establishment of Palestinian property rights, with an earmarked budget of NIS 50 million.
Yet, contrary to these claims, based on the available data, the procedure and its budgets have rather been exploited to dispossess Palestinians and instead register large swaths of land in East Jerusalem under the name of the state and private Jewish entities/individuals to expand the settlement enterprise.
Since 2018, SOLT has been initiated in a total of 240 blocs of land in East Jerusalem with an additional 150 blocs at preliminary stages. Among the 240 blocs, SOLT has been completed in approximately 50 blocs, covering some 2,300 dunams of land, of which 85% has been registered in favor of the Israeli state or settlers. Only about 1% of lands that underwent SOLT have actually been registered to private Palestinian landowners. For example, the process was advanced or finalized in areas where eight new settlements with around 20,500 housing units are planned or already under construction, including Atarot, Givat Hamatos, Givat Shaked, the Menachem Begin Complex and Nahalat Shimon in Sheikh Jarrah, and Nof Zahav, Nofei Rachel, and Umm Lison.
In other cases, the process was underhandedly advanced on built-up and inhabited Palestinian lands, where residents were unaware that SOLT procedures were underway and now face the threat of mass eviction and property confiscation. This is the case in Umm Tuba and in the Umm Haroun neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where the state is advancing the Nahalat Shimon settlement, together placing a total of some 80 families—approximately 300 people—under threat of displacement and dispossession.
More broadly, SOLT has been advanced in many additional areas where there is a heightened risk of large-scale confiscation of Palestinian land, including in the Hinnom Valley (Wadi Rababa), Beit Hanina, the village of Nu’man on the southern tip of East Jerusalem, and the American Road corridor along the eastern parts of Jabal al-Mukabber among others.
Expanded Resources and the Custodian’s Dangerous Role
The new government resolution allocates approximately NIS 30 million over the next four years (around NIS 7.5 million annually) to complete SOLT across East Jerusalem. It likewise expands staffing and positions within multiple state bodies, including the Land Registration and Settlement of Land Title Authority in the Ministry of Justice, the Israel Land Authority, the Survey of Israel, and the Custodian of Absentee Property in the Finance Ministry. While the Custodian has been involved in the SOLT process over the years, this is the first time it was formally designated as an official body responsible for carrying out the procedure and has been allocated a dedicated budget of NIS 600,000.
Land ownership claims filed by East Jerusalem Palestinians as part of the SOLT process are required to undergo a review by the Custodian of Absentee Property. On the basis of the 1950 Absentee Property Law, the Custodian of Absentee Property is given the power to seize land of any Palestinian in East Jerusalem broadly deemed “absentee” by the state. This classification applies to Palestinians who had citizenship and/or were in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Yemen at any point from November 1947 until today (excluding Egypt and Jordan after the peace agreements). The law has been used for decades in close collaboration with settler organizations to dispossess Palestinians, and it has found an amplifier in the SOLT process. It is estimated that a vast number of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem could be defined as “absentee,” and therefore their properties would be at risk of mass confiscation.
As a result, many Palestinians have refrained from taking part in the process for fear of having their lands seized by the Custodian. Yet, in the absence of claims filed for respective plots of land, the state reserves the right to confiscate and register them as state property. Either way, Palestinian landowners are faced with a Catch-22, placing them at acute risk of largescale property loss.
Further amplifying the threat, settler activist, Hananel Gurfinkel, was recently appointed to oversee and expand the operations of the Custodian of Absentee Property. Gurfinkel has long worked to advance Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem and takeover of Palestinian properties, while actively cooperating with settler groups. It is likely not a coincidence that Gurfinkel was appointed to the Custodian of Absentee Property under Smotrich’s authority as Finance Minister. Prior to this appointment, Gurfinkel served in the General Custodian under the Justice Ministry where he was responsible for administering pre-1948 Jewish assets in East Jerusalem. In this role, Gurfinkel helped to facilitate the eviction of Palestinian families and settler takeovers of their homes, including in Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, and the Old City, while directly initiating settlement plans within Palestinian neighborhoods, including those noted above.
An Unprecedented Risk of Large-Scale Dispossession
Government Resolution No. 3792 underscores Israel’s intent on exploiting SOLT to its fullest extent to advance large-scale land theft in East Jerusalem, which poses an unparalleled threat to Palestinians. These processes must be halted to prevent the mass expulsion and dispossession of entire communities across East Jerusalem.
As confirmed by the 2024 ICJ Advisory Opinion, Israel’s implementation of SOLT in East Jerusalem violates international law, as permanent processes are prohibited for an occupying power. This violation is further compounded when SOLT operates as part of a system designed to facilitate the seizure of lands, establishment of settlements and the forcible transfer of populations, which themselves constitute grave breaches of those legal principles.