Declaration of 750 dunams as State Land in the outpost of Malachei HaShalom

Yesterday, the media reported that the Civil Administration declared approximately 800 dunams as state land in the area surrounding the Malachei HaShalom outpost, located between Ramallah and Nablus. The official declaration has yet to be published on the Civil Administration’s website, but a map attached to the media reports indicates that the area in question likely includes around 750 dunams situated between the villages of Duma and Al-Mughayir. In February 2023, the Israeli cabinet approved the establishment of nine new settlements, among them Malachei HaShalom. Until now, the lands in the area of this settlement were not considered “state land,” and this new declaration paves the way for further planning and construction of the settlement.

Since the current government was formed in December 2022, around 25,510 dunams have been declared state land — amounting to nearly half of all land ever declared state land since the Oslo Accords. Declaring land as state land is one of the main tools Israel uses to take control of land in the occupied territories. Once land is declared state land, Israel no longer considers it privately owned by Palestinians, and they are barred from using it. At the same time, the state allocates such lands exclusively to Israelis.

During the 1980s, Israel declared hundreds of thousands of dunams as state land. In 1992, the Rabin government decided to halt such declarations, but the Netanyahu government resumed the practice in 1998. Over the past two years, there has been a sharp increase in the amount of land declared as state land, and the government plans to issue more declarations to enable the establishment of new settlements as approved by the cabinet.

Peace Now: “Netanyahu and Smotrich are determined to fight against the whole world and against the interests of Israeli citizens in favor of a handful of settlers who receive thousands of dunams as a gift — as if there is no political conflict to resolve or war to end. Today, it is clear to everyone that this conflict cannot be resolved without a political agreement that includes the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, yet the Israeli government chooses instead to make peace more difficult and push us further away from ending the bloodshed. The declaration and the intention to legalize the Malachei HaShalom outpost are a reward for Jewish terrorism: after settlers violently and illegally seized massive areas of land, the government comes and hands it over to them as a gift.”

Malachei HaShalom Outpost and the Expulsion of Palestinian Communities

The Malachei HaShalom outpost was established in 2015 adjacent to a military base and developed into a farm outpost that seized thousands of dunams and spawned satellite farm outposts in the area. In 2020, settlers from Malachei HaShalom established the Al-Rashash Farm approximately 3 kilometers east of the original outpost. In 2023, the Rosh HaTe’ena Farm was established about 2 kilometers to the south. In early 2024, the Gal Yosef outpost was set up roughly 1 kilometer to the north, near where an Israeli settler youth was killed by a Palestinian in April 2024. Most recently, in the past month, the Malachei HaShalom West outpost was founded about 1 kilometer to the southwest of the original outpost, very close to homes in the Palestinian village of Al-Mughayir.

In August 2023, the Palestinian community of Al-Kabun — located about 1,500 meters south of Malachei HaShalom — was expelled following settler violence and property damage. In October 2023, two more communities north of the outpost — Khirbet Jab’it and Ein al-Rashash — were also expelled. The villages of Al-Mughayir and Duma, between which the outpost was established, have suffered repeated settler attacks since the outpost’s founding.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Israeli army issued military seizure orders for most of the lands included in the current declaration and established a large military base on the site. In recent years, the base was downsized, and only a limited military presence remains. A military seizure order temporarily confiscates land for security needs, and landowners are entitled to compensation. In effect, the landowners have been prevented from accessing their land for decades due to the seizure orders — and now, the land is officially being reclassified as state land.