The Applied Research Institute "ARIJ" said, "Israel targets more than 6,900 dunums initially to implement its agenda aimed at imposing its control and sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem."

According to the ARIJ report, the so-called land settlement is one of Israel's most important tricks to Judaize East Jerusalem. The Israeli judiciary had issued an announcement about the start of land settlement with new names and numbers for basins in different neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

The report notes that the issue of land administration remains one of the most complex issues that Palestinians have had to deal with in the occupied territories, and the lack of official data related to land use and registration often causes confusion, especially since the Israeli occupation stopped all procedures related to land registration and inheritance since His disruption of the Earth in the year 1967.

It is worth mentioning here that the historical context of land registration in Palestine took place and was included in different classifications according to the successive administrations that passed through the land.

During the Ottoman era in Palestine, the process of land registration known as Tabu began in 1858 to establish land ownership rights for owners. During the years of the British Mandate over Palestine (1920-1948), the Land Settlement Decree entered into force in 1928 to confirm the ownership rights of the land owners.

Despite this, both the Ottomans and the British failed in their endeavors, as the agricultural community of peasants, who constituted the majority of land owners, rejected the British registration method, which overthrew the traditional system of collective ownership of land, and also because of the high taxes imposed by the Ottomans on registered cultivated land. During the period of Jordanian administration since 1948, which lasted until 1967, less than 30% of the lands of the West Bank were registered.

Additional land surveys were completed, including in East Jerusalem, but not officially registered due to the 1967 war.

With Israel's occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) in 1967, the occupying power of Israel did not recognize the traditional communal ownership system that existed on the land, particularly in the southern rural areas of the West Bank.

Moreover, Israel used policies, laws and regulations to enable its dominance over privately owned Palestinian lands, which was a first step towards issuing the Israeli military order of 1967 to stop any form of land registration in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Including East Jerusalem, under the pretext of protecting the property rights of absentees.

2017 is a turning point
In his report, Areej stressed that after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the unified capital of Israel and took the long-awaited Israeli step to open the US embassy in Jerusalem, the Israeli occupation municipality in Jerusalem began a plan to settle real estate rights in Jerusalem.

The undeclared goal of the Israeli settlement plan is to deny Palestinians in the diaspora or even in the West Bank their right to inherit their property in occupied Jerusalem, which paves the way for the occupation to seize that property under the pretext that their ownership has not been properly documented according to the procedures, and therefore, the reactivation of the law Absentees' property requires the official appropriation of Palestinian property.

In any case, in the event of a settlement (imposed on the Palestinians) between the conflicting parties, it is likely that the Palestinian Jerusalemites will be subject to an Israeli law that requires them to pay exorbitant taxes retroactively in order to register only their real property and not the land on which it stands.

Based on the foregoing, on March 19, 2018, the Israeli Minister of Justice at the time, Ayelet Shaked, announced her intention to initiate procedures for settling real estate rights and purchasing lands in various locations in occupied East Jerusalem, with the aim of strengthening Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and forcing Palestinians in the city to pay taxes.

An amount of 100 million shekels has been allocated for the next five years to examine about 17,000 land purchases and real estate transactions that the Jewish National Fund (Kern Kimmitt) claims acquired by purchase before the Nakba of 1948. It seeks in its claims to rely on the discriminatory law of 1970 (legal and administrative). which enables Jews only and exclusively to claim property they lost in pre-1948 East Jerusalem, while denying Palestinians the same right to do so.

Obviously, through the Jewish National Fund, the law will complete the registration procedures for 88% of the transactions that have not been completed at that time. To this end, the occupation government approved in May 2018 the allocation of a budget of five hundred and sixty million dollars to strengthen Israel's control and sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem for the next five years. Including budget allocations to cover procedural expenses for the settlement of real estate rights.

The JNF's efforts to follow up the transactions are aimed at affecting 530 sites (360 real estate and 170 plots of land) in various locations in East Jerusalem after the 1967 war. The JNF approved Ayelet Shaked's endeavors related to land registration in East Jerusalem, for the benefit of Jews in all All over Jerusalem, where there are 2,050 deals under discussion, including real estate and lands, on an area of approximately 2,500 dunams, which has been administered under special guardianship since 1967.

This is in addition to those lands that were cut off from the West Bank, from Ramallah (north of Jerusalem), Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour in the southern side of Jerusalem, which Israel illegally annexed to the illegally drawn borders of East Jerusalem in violation of international law. Security Council resolutions and unilaterally in the aftermath of the 1967 war.

It is worth mentioning here that many of these lands that were placed under guardianship have present owners, and that many of the properties have been inhabited by Palestinians for decades, including for periods before the 1967 occupation, for example Sheikh Jarrah. The Palestinian population is still struggling with their lives and money to maintain their right and presence in the targeted properties and real estate in the Israeli courts for decades, as they are still under constant threat of eviction at the request and urgency of the Jewish National Fund, which is becoming closer to the truth with the existence of a settlement government par excellence, targeting All that is Palestinian, both human and stone.

Extremist government and fertile environment
Accordingly, the Palestinian Jerusalemites should not deal with the Israeli procedures related to land registration in Jerusalem or anywhere else for that matter. What Israel is trying to do in Jerusalem goes beyond the mere land registration process, but rather aims to legitimize the process of forced annexation on the land, starting with the declaration of a united Jerusalem. To what is to come, the Declaration of Greater Jerusalem, by conferring Palestinian legitimacy through dragging into illegal registration procedures that ignore the legitimate rights of more than 300,000 indigenous Palestinians living in the city.

What Israel is doing in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially in East Jerusalem, is nothing but a flagrant violation of international law and the resolutions of the United Nations and the Security Council, and falls under the name of a war crime against humanity.

Based on the foregoing, the report confirms that Israel violates Article 17/2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1965, Article 46 of the Hague Convention of 1907 for the preservation of private property, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and all Forms of human rights, resolutions of international legitimacy and Security Council Resolution No. 198 of 1971, which stipulates that the military seizure of lands of others is illegal and violates international law, as well as Security Council Resolution No. 2334 of 2016.