Israeli lawmakers are expected to soon vote on legislation that would hand the Israeli government power over ancient sites in the occupied territories, which if passed would amount to an unprecedented step towards the annexation of Palestinian land .
The antiquities bill would establish a "Judea, Samaria and Gaza Heritage Authority", enabling the Israeli government to seize land in the occupied territories under the guise of protecting historic sites.
The bill was introduced to the Knesset education committee by settler activist MK Zvi Sukkot and Likud MK Amit Halevi.
It passed its first reading earlier in May and is close to be passed to the plenum for a final vote, according to Israeli media. 'Creeping annexation' The Israeli military has controlled most of the West Bank since the start of the occupation in 1967. Under the 1995 Oslo II Accords, it has continued to administer civilian affairs in the 60% of the territory known as Area C, while the Palestinian Authority took over civil and security control of area A. Area B is under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control.
However this new bill would extend Israeli civil control to Areas A and B.
The responsibility for protecting antiquities currently lies with the Civil Administration, the military's governing body in the West Bank.
The legislation seeks to change this by transferring responsibility for historic sites to the Heritage Ministry, handing control over Palestinian land to Israel's civilian government for the first time.
The bill would hand the proposed Heritage Authority broad powers over areas it considers important to Israel's heritage, including the purchase or outright seizure of land and ancient sites.
It would apply not just in Area C but in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, as well as in Gaza, 60% of which is currently occupied by Israeli forces.
Such powers could see the authority take control of swathes of Palestinian land, with the West Bank containing as many as 6,000 archaeological sites.
The Heritage Ministry is currently under the control of Amichai Eliyahu, a member of Itamar Ben-Gvir's extremist Jewish Power party who was photographed holding an Israeli flag at the Sartaba ruins in the Jordan Valley in February.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now has said that the bill will allow the ministry to arbitrarily seize parts of the West Bank in the name of protecting antiquities and put Palestinian land under the direct control of Israeli settlers.
"The most failed and extreme government in the history of the state is using every possible trick to deepen the annexation of the territories and allocate more and more resources for settlement purposes, this time under the guise of 'preserving the heritage,'" the organisation said earlier this month.
The education committee's legal adviser, Tami Sela, has warned lawmakers that the bill would put Israel in breach of international law and "reinforces claims of ‘creeping annexation".
"The enactment of the bill could, especially cumulatively with additional legislation being promoted in the Knesset, reinforce claims that this constitutes a process of ‘creeping annexation,'" Sela wrote in a report last week. 'There is no such thing as Palestinian heritage' Supporter of the antiquities bill have spoken openly about its annexationist goals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the bill aims to "strengthen our hold on the Land of Israel".
Sukkot, a member of the far-right Religious Zionism party and chair of the education committee, has linked it to extending Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territories.
"It is a terrible disgrace that the State of Israel has not applied Israeli law in Judea and Samaria for so many years," he said during a recent committee meeting.
"There is no such thing as Palestinian heritage. There is a Jewish heritage that is thousands of years old, and we are committed to protecting it," he said.
The bill is the latest in a series of measures pushed under the far-right Netanyahu government to cement Israeli control over the West Bank and preclude a Palestinian state.
The government has overseen the fastest proliferation of illegal settlements in Israel's history. In April, it approved 34 new settlements in the West Bank in what was the single-largest expansion on record.
The leader of the Religious Zionism party, Bezalel Smotrich - who holds a senior position in the Civil Administration as well as serving as the finance minister – in February announced changes to make it easier for settlers to purchase land in the West Bank .
This has coincided with a surge in settler violence which since October 2023 has seen near-daily attacks on Palestinian villages and the displacement of thousands of civilians. Backlash The Palestinian Authority condemned the bill as another means of controlling Palestinian heritage and transferring land to Israeli settlers.
It called on UNESCO and other international organisations to take urgent action to prevent
The legislation has also received backlash from figures inside the Israeli military and academia, who have warned it will further expose the country to boycotts and erode its support abroad.
Emek Shaveh, an organisation of Israeli archaeologists, last week called it a "deeply harmful piece of legislation…that will deepen the use of antiquities as a tool for land expropriation and for the dispossession of the Palestinians from their cultural heritage".
Its violation of international law will harm the standing of Israeli archaeology and the State of Israel itself, it added.
Meanwhile, senior military figures have told the committee that the army is opposed to the bill being applied in Gaza.
Maj. Marta Kramenko said this month that the bill could risk the safety of Israeli forces, harm the country's international reputation, and complicate the Trump-backed Board of Peace's reconstruction plans.