A Palestinian official in the occupied West Bank has described Israel's latest expansion of control there as the end of the road for negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
Asma al-Sharabati, acting mayor of Hebron, said new legal changes recently announced by Israeli cabinet ministers would leave Palestinian authorities shut out of decisions on urban planning and development, even in areas under Palestinian control.
Hebron is a regular flashpoint in the West Bank — a divided city, where soldiers guard hundreds of Israeli settlers living alongside Palestinians in an Israeli military garrison.
On Sunday, the Israeli security cabinet passed major changes to the established division of powers in the West Bank, set up three decades ago under the US-backed Oslo Accords, signed by both Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
According to al-Sharabati, these new measures will allow Israel to claim any surrounding Palestinian structure as an ancient site, transferring the right to urban planning directly to Israeli authorities. Now they can simply put their hands on any building and declare it is ancient, and the Palestinian authorities are not part of any decision on urban planning or development of the area, she stated.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist living in the highly contested H2 area of Hebron, warns that these changes might signify a legal transformation from occupied territories to formal annexation, saying, It's part of Israel now without any rights for me. It's annexation of the land without me, as a Palestinian.
The expansion of Israeli presence and control across the West Bank has occurred while international focus remains predominantly on Gaza, raising serious questions about the viability of peace and Palestinian statehood.
