Israel has launched a new electronic land registration system for the occupied West Bank ’s Area C, a move that Palestinians and rights groups warn will accelerate de facto annexation of occupied land.
The system, known as the “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” and codenamed “Grenade”, was rolled out on Wednesday as a digital platform to formalise land ownership claims. Israeli authorities brand the initiative as being intended to streamline property registration and provide legal clarity over land status .
However, the system appears to be part of a broader strategy to consolidate Israeli control over Area C, which makes up around 60 percent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli military and administrative control under the Oslo Accords.
The registry process was reopened earlier this year for the first time since 1967, when Israel transferred land settlement powers to military authorities following its occupation of the West Bank.
Israeli officials allocated tens of millions of dollars to advance the process, which is expected to cover large swathes of Area C.
According to Israeli media reports, the programme could ultimately facilitate the registration of land across approximately 58 percent of Area C, raising concerns among legal experts that it will entrench Israeli claims over the occupied West Bank.
Extreme-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich , who has been granted significant authority over civilian affairs in the West Bank, previously described the move as a “fundamental change in the legal and civil reality”.
Palestinian officials and rights organisations have strongly condemned the Israeli move.
The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate said the system constitutes a tool to “entrench the unlawful seizure of Palestinian land”, warning that digitised registration mechanisms could be used to sideline Palestinian ownership claims and expand settlement infrastructure.
Rights groups also point to the broader context of settlement expansion and administrative measures that they say amount to creeping annexation. ‘Like an electric shock’: Khan al-Ahmar faces erasure The implications of such policies are already visible on the ground, particularly in vulnerable communities like Khan al-Ahmar , a Bedouin village east of Jerusalem that has long faced the threat of demolition.
Israeli authorities are expected to open bids on 1 June for the construction of more than 3,400 new settlement units in the E1 corridor, an occupied area linking East Jerusalem to the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc.
The project, long opposed by the international community, would effectively sever the northern and southern West Bank, undermining the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state.
Khan al-Ahmar lies directly in the path of these plans. Around 4,000 Palestinians across 18 Bedouin and herding communities in the area are at risk of forced displacement.
“Families here are not prepared to leave,” said Abu Khamees, a community leader in Khan al-Ahmar. “The decision for imminent forced displacement was like an electric shock to us. People are anxious about where to go with their children.”
Residents say access to basic services has already deteriorated due to movement restrictions, checkpoints, and settler expansion . Humanitarian organisations warn that displacement would further cut communities off from healthcare and education.
Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said the expansion of settlements and related infrastructure has created a “coercive environment” that is driving displacement across Area C. Mobile clinics, often the only source of healthcare for isolated communities, have treated tens of thousands of patients in recent years.
“The threatened destruction of Khan al-Ahmar exposes the hollowness of years of international handwringing over illegal settlements,” said Aseel Baidoun, MAP’s deputy director of advocacy and communications in the West Bank. “Empty condemnation while illegal settlements expand in plain sight is not diplomacy – it’s complicity.”
The charity also highlighted a sharp rise in settler violence, with hundreds of attacks recorded this year targeting Palestinian homes, farmland, and infrastructure. Such incidents, combined with administrative measures like land registration and planning restrictions, are seen by many as part of a broader effort to reshape the demographic and geographic reality of the West Bank.
Several Western governments, including the UK, have warned that settlement expansion in areas like E1 could have “legal and reputational consequences” for companies involved.
For communities like Khan al-Ahmar, the combination of new administrative systems and accelerating settlement construction is not abstract policy but an immediate threat.
“If Khan al-Ahmar is erased from the map, it will not happen quietly or accidentally,” Baidoun said. “It will happen after years of empty statements and political inaction.”