LONDON: The Israeli occupation military has quietly transferred significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants working for the far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich, according to a new report by the Guardian.

An order posted by the Israel occupation army on its website on 29 May transfers responsibility for dozens of bylaws at the Civil Administration – the Israeli body governing in the West Bank – from the military to officials led by Smotrich at the defense ministry, the report says.

Smotrich and his allies have long seen control of the Civil Administration, or significant parts of it, as a means of extending Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. According to the report, “their ultimate goal is direct control by central government and its ministries. The transfer reduces the likelihood of legal checks on settlement expansion and development.”

Israeli politicians have long sought to find ways to permanently seize, or annex, the occupied West Bank, which it captured in 1967
and where millions of Palestinians live.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, said: ‘The bottom line is that [for] anyone who thought the question of annexation was foggy, this order should end any doubts. What this order does is transfers vast areas of administrative power from the military commander to Israeli civilians working for the government.’

The Civil Administration is principally responsible for planning and construction in Area C of the West Bank – the 60% of the Occupied Palestinian Territories under full Israeli administrative and security control – as well as enforcement against unauthorised construction, whether by Israeli colonists or by Palestinians.

The transfer of laws, which was largely unremarked upon in Israel, follows a years-long campaign by pro-settlement politicians to accrue many of the legal powers previously wielded by the military chain of command.

Source: Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA