Israel’s High Court strikes down West Bank land-grab law as ‘unconstitutional’

Israeli Border Policemen evicting a settler from the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona, February 2017
Israeli Border Policemen evicting a settler from the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona, February 2017.  (photo: Ilan Assayag)
The Law for the Regularization of Settlement in Judea and Samaria has been frozen since its approval in 2017 pending High Court ruling.

By Hagar Shezaf  | Haaretz | June 6, 2020

…the law ‘seeks to retroactively legalize illegal acts perpetrated by a specific population in the region whilst harming the rights of another.’
— Esther Hayut, Israel Supreme Court President

Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered on Tuesday to nullify a law that would legalize the status of settlements partially built on privately owned Palestinian land under the claim that it is “unconstitutional.”

The “Law for the Regularization of Settlement in Judea and Samaria” was approved in February 2017. It was meant to allow the use of privately-owned Palestinian land to build Israeli settlements and to legalize outposts and structures erected on such soil.

The law was frozen shortly after its approval in an agreement between the state and several petitioners against it until the High Court ruled on the matter.

In her ruling, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut said that the law “seeks to retroactively legalize illegal acts perpetrated by a specific population in the region whilst harming the rights of another.”

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