Legal Overhaul, Demolitions and Raids Intensify as Experts Warn Israel Advancing Administrative Annexation of West Bank
Tuesday, February 10, 2026 at 09:13PM 10 February 2026 New: Palestine Chronicle Staff
Japan's Foreign Ministry Press Secretary. (Photos: Twitter, via QNN. Design: PC)
Japan condemned settlement expansion while legal experts, Jordan, and escalating raids pointed to accelerating annexation policy in West Bank.
Key Developments
- Japan demanded Israel fully freeze settlement activity and prevent settler violence.
- Israel approved measures altering land laws, ownership access, and building authority in West Bank areas.
- Legal experts said Israel lacks sovereignty to abolish Jordanian-era legislation in occupied territory.
- Jordan rejected the decisions and warned of legal and diplomatic countermeasures.
- Arrest raids, demolitions, and settler attacks continued across multiple West Bank locations.
Japan Issues Rare Direct Warning
Japan urged Israel on Tuesday to “fully freeze” illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank after Israeli cabinet decisions approved on Sunday that Tokyo said could accelerate settlement development and tighten Israeli control, according to a statement by Foreign Ministry Press Secretary carried by Anadolu.
Japan said settlement activity violates international law and undermines the viability of a two-state solution.
Tokyo also called for prompt measures to prevent settler violence and urged restraint from steps that escalate tensions in the West Bank, linking the warning to broader international efforts aimed at stabilizing conditions around the Gaza Strip.
What Israel’s Cabinet Approved
According to Anadolu, citing Israel’s public broadcaster KAN, the Security Cabinet ordered a set of changes affecting land ownership and governance mechanisms in the West Bank.
The reported measures included repealing a Jordanian-era law barring the sale of Palestinian land to Jews in the West Bank, unsealing land-ownership records, and transferring authority over building permits in a Hebron (Al-Khalil) settlement bloc from a Palestinian municipal body to Israel’s civil administration.
The changes could enable broader demolitions and seizures of Palestinian property, including in areas that fall under Palestinian civil and security administration under existing arrangements.
No Legal Authority
Jordan-based political science professor Issa Al-Shalabi told Anadolu that Israel can practically suspend Jordanian-era laws through military orders under the occupation’s military regime, but has no legal authority to permanently abolish those laws or replace them with sovereign Israeli legislation.
He argued that abolishing a law presupposes legal sovereignty—which he said does not exist in an occupied territory—describing the changes as an imposed fait accompli “by force, not by legitimacy”.
Al-Shalabi also said facilitating land sales to settlers violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions, and warned the policy trajectory could carry legal consequences.
Jordan Rejects the Measures
Abdullah Kanaan, secretary-general of Jordan’s Royal Committee for Jerusalem Affairs said the measures form part of a broader effort to legitimize settlement expansion, annexation, and displacement.
He said the Jordanian legal framework restricting transfers of property to Israelis remains valid under the historical legal reference, and that any occupation-driven attempt to change it is null and illegal.
Al-Shalabi said Jordan has options that include activating diplomatic action at the UN, supporting International Criminal Court files through official memoranda, and using the 1994 peace treaty as political pressure.
He also described Jordanian-Palestinian coordination across legal, political, and practical channels to block legitimization of the Israeli decisions.
Israel’s Illegal Measures: Regional, Palestinian Leaders Condemn Annexation Moves
On-the-Ground Reality
On the ground, Israeli forces detained 25 Palestinians on Tuesday during raids across multiple West Bank locations.
Local sources said arrests included 13 in and around Nablus, seven in Azzun east of Qalqilya, a detention in Jenin carried out by an undercover unit, an arrest in Bal’a east of Tulkarem, and three detentions in al-Shuyukh north of Hebron.
Palestinian Prisoner Society figures placing the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody at more than 9,300, including 58 women and 350 children, and reported West Bank casualty and detention figures since October 2023.
WAFA separately reported Israeli forces demolished two Palestinian homes in Bartaa southwest of Jenin, citing “lack of permits,” and warned neighboring homeowners faced similar threats.
The Palestinian news agency also reported Israeli forces stormed Yasuf–Iskaka Boys’ Secondary School and removed the Palestinian flag, while additional reports described settler assaults on residents in Khirbet Samra in the northern Jordan Valley and the seizure of caves in Masafer Yatta as part of an expanding “pastoral settlement” footprint.
Israel Funds Settler Militias, Expands Land Control in Sweeping West Bank Policy Shift
Administrative Steps that Rewire Control
An Al-Jazeera Arabic analysis described the cabinet decisions as a major shift aimed at restructuring governance and land administration across the occupied West Bank. It said the measures expand demolition authority even in areas classified under Oslo as “A” and “B,” justified through enforcement claims related to archaeology, water, and environmental controls.
The analysis added that the measures unseal land records, allowing direct approaches to Palestinian landowners, and weaken restrictions on land transfers. It said permitting and local authority arrangements in Hebron and Bethlehem-linked areas would be changed in ways that could hollow out existing agreements, including the 1997 Hebron Protocol.
It also cited a 2026 budget allocation of 225 million shekels tied to an Israeli “tabu” land-registry unit intended to expand Israeli land-registration mechanisms in the West Bank.
(Anadolu, AJA, WAFA, PC)
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