On March 30, 2017, Yossi Segal, an official in the Civil Administration responsible for 'abandoned government property' in the West Bank, signed a declaration titled ‘Eli - Palgei Mayim and Giv'at Haroeh - Declaration of Government Property.’  The declared territory includes 977 dunams within the area between the cities of Ramallah and Nablus - land belonging to the four Palestinian villages of: Sinjil, Qaryut, As Sawiya, and Al Lubban ash Sharqiya.
 

The declaration had two objectives:

1. To retroactively legalize the illegal outpost of Palgei Mayim and the access road to the outpost of Givat Haroeh.

2. To prepare the legal basis for the future expansion of the settlement of Eli and its surrounding outposts.

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This document is devoted to an in-depth analysis of how the Civil Administration's land survey team (which is responsible for locating and mapping land to be designated state land), drew the lines defining the current declaration of Eli. To accurately map territory that Israel considers 'state land' in the West Bank, there appears to be vast importance in its near exclusive allocation to settlers, while maintaining that it doesn't harm the private property of Palestinian residents. This issue recently made headlines when Ha'aretz reported that Attorney General Mandelblit approved a plan to allow for the expropriation of private Palestinian-owned land on which settlements were built, on the condition that the expropriation was made mistakenly, in 'good faith.'

 

 We would like to emphasize that the very focus on the detailed manner in which the survey was carried out in preparation for the declaration, does not imply that Kerem Navot recognize the legitimacy of the practice of declaring state land. This is an illegal practice based on a manipulative interpretation of the Ottoman Land Law (1958), which aims to circumvent the system of registration of land ownership that was acceptable until the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, and its implementation in large swaths of the West Bank.

 

That being the case, in this document we question the legitimacy of the current declaration, and the degree of ‘good faith’ behind it, based on work methods and principles that were allegedly supposed to guide the land survey team as it mapped the boundaries of 'state land.'