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Scene. Published by IMEMC News
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by IMEMC News
Sep 20, 2025

Israeli occupation authorities seized hundreds of dunams of Palestinian agricultural land on Friday in the town of Nahhalin, west of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

Hassan Breijiyya, Director of the International Law Department at the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission, stated that the confiscation targets part of Basin No. 4 in the areas of Bint Issa and Kleiba, encompassing approximately 300 dunams.

Breijiyya explained that the order, officially announced today, reclassifies the land from agricultural to residential use—paving the way for the construction of colonies and their roads.

Although the seizure order was issued on August 15, landowners were not formally until Friday, and landowners have a 60-day window to file objections, of which 50 days have already passed.

He warned that the move aims to tighten control over Nahhalin and expand the boundaries of the Gva’ot illegal colony and the Gush Etzion colonialist bloc, signaling further land appropriation in Basin # 4 and intensifying pressure on the western rural areas of Bethlehem.

All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.

Articles 53 and 147, which prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.