Arab Parliament rates West Bank land decisions as full-fledged war crimes after a decision by the security cabinet of Israel to pass sweeping changes in terms of land registration and property sales in occupied territory. The actions, which were approved on February 8, 2026, lift historical limitations on the sale of privately owned land to the Israelis and confer more power on the Israeli civil authority to permit building in Area C.
The West Bank includes lower estimates of about 60 percent of the area that is termed Area C according to the associations of the Oslo Accords of 1990s. In the new scheme, Israeli officials are hoping to make registration claims over most of the 15 percent of unregistered lands in a span of four years. Authorities refer to the program as the administrative modernization; the opponents refer to it as a plan of strategic consolidation of the territorial power.
Land Registration Acceleration
The move to open and computerize land registers is perceived by the Israeli policy makers as a way of demystifying the law. However, according to the reports of monitoring groups, since October 2023, over 15,000 dunams have been declared as state land. This has increased criticism on whether registration reforms will enable increased settlement construction.
Through the formalization of ownership documentation, Israeli authorities may simplify the process of sales which used to be restricted to state organizations or strictly controlled structures. The administrative change is an indicator of structural realignment of the land governance exercise in conflict areas.
Transfer Of Permit Authority
The cabinet’s decision to increase its control on the building of permits within Area C changes a fine balance. The Palestinian municipalities have a history of having limited planning roles but on a limited basis.
Transfer of permit centralization of Israeli institutions has the potential of redefining the development trends in settlement blocks in and around Hebron and other strategic corridors. This is not just limited to the approvals of the constructions in that it also impacts demographic distribution and economic activity.
Arab Parliament Response And Legal Framing
However, Arab Parliament speaker Mohammed bin Ahmed Al-Yamahi criticized the actions on February 16, 2026, saying it was an outrageous spiral and a breach of international law. He described the moves as an annexation move that changes the legal and historical position of occupied Palestinian territory.
The declaration made it clear that an occupying power has no sovereignty of land that is controlled by the military. The Parliament demanded accountability arrangements, such as the referral to the international courts, which cast the decisions of the cabinet as the ones that are consistent with the tendencies of the territorial entrenchment that were observed since 2023.
Alignment With International Legal Norms
Arab Parliament officials mentioned the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council resolutions such as resolution 2334 that consider settlements in occupied Palestinian territory as illegally established. They also cited the Fourth Geneva Convention that stated that population transfer to occupied territories was forbidden.
The legal case forwarded by the Parliament recommends that the systematic land registration, coupled with the increased settlement activity, may reach the thresholds of prosecutable offence according to the international humanitarian legislation. The institutional process is emphasized over individual incidences as evidence of a transition to structural accountability claims.
Calls For International Criminal Court Scrutiny
The Palestinian leadership has already presented documentation to the International Criminal Court concerning the settlement activity. The recent events can offer further evidentiary background on the intent of administration.
According to legal specialists, in case a direct correlation between land policy and demographic engineering is proved, the claims on the basis of the doctrine of unlawful transfer become more solid. It is still being looked at whether or not prosecutors will view registration reforms as discrete actions or as a more comprehensive annexation course.
Regional Diplomacy And Coordinated Arab Positions
The Arab Parliament was not the only reaction. The League of Arab States termed the measures as pre-formal annexation. Representatives claimed that changes of property structures in Area C spoil a negotiated two-state solution.
Equally, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation amplified the views in the United Nations, alarmed that any additional speed of formalizing the land standings might send the Palestinian communities home and bind the settlement blocks. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates had made coordinated statements by mid-February 2026, a sign of a wide-ranging regional support.
Palestinian Authority Position
According to Riyad Mansour who is the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, the move by the cabinet was an attack on Palestinian statehood aspirations along the 1967 boundaries. He started consultations in the Security Council to deal with what he referred to as administrative annexation.
Hebron and neighboring villages Local activists have posited that the pressure of displacement will be heightened through the simplification of land registration and consolidation of the permits. According to the reports of UN agencies since 2022, over 7,000 Palestinian buildings were destroyed, and over 12,000 people lost homes.
Settlement Expansion And Demographic Calculus
With an estimated population of over 700,000 settlers in the West Bank by the end of 2026, different monitoring systems had reached this number. This growth may be enhanced by normalization of sale of privately owned lands, especially settlement blocks that are strategically located that would link Jerusalem to the rest of the territories.
The supporters of the Israeli settlements have argued that land tenure will enhance property rights and decrease bureaucracy and inefficiency. As Hagit Ofran of Peace Now noticed, allowing Israeli buying freely will mean a change in thinking of Area C as less occupied land but a unifying space.
There is a very significant diplomatic implication of this reframing. The provisional designations of Oslo were to be provisional waiting until final-status talks. Administrative permanence would change the platform on which any future negotiations will start.
2025 Developments Leading To February 2026 Decision
In 2025, Israel enhanced its control over the West Bank as normalization talks between it and the regional actors grounded. Constructive efforts to revive the momentum of more global agreements in the Middle East failed as violence intensified and settlement approvals rose.
The international surveillance bodies noted an increase of over 700 cases of settlers related cases every month during some months of 2025. At the same time, Israel claimed that the administrative clarity should be improved to ensure order and legal predictability in disputable areas.
The intersection of the boosted land announcements and administrative change reached the February 2026 approval of a cabinet. The timing is considered by analysts to be indicative of domestic politics and regional adjustments after changing loyalties and economic strains.
Geopolitical And Legal Trajectories
The title of the article The Accusation: Arab Parliament Accuses West Bank Land Decisions of Full-Fledged War Crime sets a rhetorical line a bit more sharply. The language of war crimes has a connotation to the issue of sanctions and possible economic impacts.
The European states have indicated that they would continue to monitor settlement expansion as new sanction structures are associated with the compliance with the international humanitarian law. In the meantime, the mediation of the United States is drawn into new complexity with conflicting definitions of administrative reform and annexation.
The effectiveness of these measures by the cabinet will probably rest on the establishment of domestic judicial review in Israel, regional relations and the rate at which international prosecutions take place. The land policy as a business that was initially regarded as a technical administrative field has now been a focal point of geopolitical struggle.
As demographic realities evolve and legal processes advance, the intersection of governance, sovereignty, and accountability in Area C may determine whether future negotiations recalibrate territorial arrangements or entrench a status quo increasingly resistant to reversal.