Al-Mughayyir, occupied West Financial institution – Because the October olive harvest approaches, Bilal Abu Alia stands close to his residence, gazing at his household’s land – territory he says Israeli authorities have taken from his household within the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.
Of their authentic 0.4sq km (100 acres) of land, Bilal explains that his household can now solely entry a small space that features their residence and some olive bushes.
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Land confiscation within the occupied West Financial institution doesn’t at all times start with a direct seizure. In lots of cases, the method begins with the redesignation and demarcation of land on official Israeli maps, with the Israeli Civil Administration’s “Blue Line Crew” enjoying an necessary position.
In keeping with a report printed in mid-September by the Nationwide Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements, a physique affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Group, the Blue Line staff was formally established in 1999. Its main position is to determine and formally designate areas that Israeli authorities classify as “state land”.
Comprising surveyors, cartographers and authorized consultants, the staff makes use of trendy surveying know-how and geographic info methods to evaluate and redraw these boundaries on official maps, in keeping with the bureau.
The importance of the method is that land included inside the boundaries Israel recognises as “state land” can subsequently be allotted for settlement initiatives, that are unlawful beneath worldwide regulation.
Israel’s Civil Administration has argued that Blue Line revisions are technical corrections of historic surveying errors. However the United Nations has mentioned that the revisions have primarily expanded the boundaries of land categorized by Israel as state property.
The bureau report argues that, in recent times, the Blue Line staff has developed from a technical mechanism for boundary demarcation right into a device more and more used to speed up settlement enlargement and legitimise settlement outposts.
The staff lately re-demarcated areas within the northern and central West Financial institution totalling nearly 0.2sq km (49 acres) that have been reclassified from “state land” to land designated for settlement exercise, in keeping with the workplace. That included land that belonged to the Palestinian villages of Jalud, Qaryut, Turmusayya and al-Mughayyir.
Al Jazeera has reached out to Israeli authorities for remark, however has but to obtain a response.
Bulldozing the land
In August 2025, an Israeli settler was shot whereas encroaching on Palestinian land in al-Mughayyir. Israeli forces subsequently launched a four-day operation within the village, throughout which bulldozers uprooted thousands of olive trees throughout a lot of the village, together with the land later taken from Bilal’s household.
“We have been knowledgeable that we have been barred from accessing this land, that it had grow to be a army zone after which state land. We watched because the olive bushes planted by my great-grandfather a century in the past have been bulldozed and uprooted proper earlier than our eyes, but we have been powerless to cease it,” Bilal instructed Al Jazeera.
Israel knowledgeable the household that the land had grow to be a closed army zone, off-limits to each Palestinians and settlers. Nonetheless, shortly after, Bilal seen a settler plowing the land. After the household lodged a criticism with the army liaison workplace, the settler stopped ploughing for a number of days however quickly resumed beneath the safety of the Israeli military.
“Moreover, in December 2025, months after the olive bushes have been uprooted, we tried to collect the particles to no less than salvage the wooden,” he added. “We found that the land was beneath digital camera surveillance; my father, my aged uncle and I have been arrested and held for 3 days handcuffed, blindfolded and left mendacity on the chilly floor at a military camp.”
The land was as soon as a supply of livelihood for Bilal’s prolonged household, however the household says it may well now not farm it. In the meantime, settlers proceed to enter and use land within the space surrounding their residence.
The household tried to file an objection in opposition to the confiscation of their land, however Bilal mentioned he was solely given three days to file an objection, leaving them no actual alternative to behave, whereas bulldozers had already begun work on the location.
Land engineering
The implications of the Blue Line staff’s work go far past merely altering colors or boundaries on a map: A reclassification of land to state property can successfully open it as much as development initiatives or unlawful settlement enlargement.
Within the case of al-Mughayyir, this happens inside the context of broader settlement enlargement that, in keeping with the Nationwide Bureau, encircles the village and restricts residents’s means to entry and utilise their land.
This mechanism means that land seizure usually unfolds in levels: The land is first surveyed and bounds redrawn earlier than being designated ‘state land’ after which designated for settlement enlargement.
Within the northern West Financial institution, the measures add to the continued enlargement of Israeli settlements round Jenin. For instance, the bureau factors to army seizure orders affecting land round Qabatiya, close to Jenin.
In keeping with the report, Israel has focused lands belonging to Qabatiya and the encompassing space in current weeks, with two army orders confiscating a complete of just about 14sq km (5.4 sq miles or almost 3,500 acres).
Raed Moqadi, a researcher on the Land Analysis Middle, instructed Al Jazeera that the Blue Line staff efforts had accelerated in 2026.
“The Palestinian Authority has submitted objections concerning the staff’s work to numerous worldwide establishments and organisations, however these strikes haven’t led to a halt within the measures being taken on the bottom,” he defined.
The Blue Line staff will not be the one mechanism affecting management over Palestinian land however as a substitute operates inside a wider system involving an internet of overlapping measures.
Salah al-Khawaja, a senior official with Colonization and Wall Resistance Fee, instructed Al Jazeera that the coverage of controlling Palestinian land operates inside an built-in system comprising settlements, pastoral outposts and settler roads, alongside the separation wall, army zones and coaching areas.
Al-Khawaja linked the measures to a broader political agenda geared toward entrenching Israeli management over Area C, the realm of the West Financial institution beneath Israeli army and administrative management, in accordance with a plan printed by now Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in 2017.
Al-Khawaja famous that the authorized course of can also be a part of the system. The vast majority of land-related instances dealt with by the fee are resolved in favour of settlers and rulings by the Israeli Supreme Courtroom now not present enough safety for Palestinians in land disputes, he mentioned.
For Palestinians whose land is affected, this in the end means the lack of land that has usually been of their household’s palms for generations.
Adnan Kmail, 62, whose household owns land affected by the current Israeli army orders in al-Mughayyir, instructed Al Jazeera that he has by no means obtained a transparent, written discover concerning what he mentioned was the seizure of 0.1 sq km (25 acres) of his property. As an alternative, he was knowledgeable by the native municipality.
He subsequently watched as Israeli bulldozers uprooted olive bushes, some over 60 years previous, to make manner for a military outpost.
The olive bushes supplied a supply of earnings for Adnan and his prolonged household – greater than 70 individuals in complete. Adnan mentioned the land produced about 5,000kg (1,100 kilos) of olive oil every season, earnings the households have now misplaced.
“We didn’t file an objection as a result of we knew it might be futile. We are able to’t even go close to the land; only a few days in the past, troopers shot a person within the leg merely for passing by means of the realm. My coronary heart aches every time I consider my land,” Adnan mentioned.
