Since the beginning of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank the Israeli authorities have designated 76 areas as nature reserves covering about 13% of the West Bank (approximately 578000 dunums).
Established unilaterally by the Israeli authorities their control should have been relinquished to the Palestinians under the Oslo Accords along with the entire West Bank by 1999.
However all successive Israeli governments since then have refused to do so and have instead solidified their control of Area C particularly through the creation and expansion of illegal settlements.
In 2020 Israeli former Army Minister Naftali Bennett announced the creation of seven new nature reserves in the occupied West Bank spreading over an area of 130000 dunums.
“Today we’re giving a great boost to the Land of Israel and continuing to develop Jewish settlements in Area C through actions not words” he said.
In the same announcement Bennett also declared that 12 existing nature reserves in the West Bank would be expanded. According to the NGO Peace Now some 20000 dunums of the land slated for the new reserves is privately owned by Palestinians.
Moreover one Bedouin community is located within one of these new nature reserves placing it at risk of forced displacement by the Israeli authorities.
All of these areas fall within Area C of the West Bank a contiguous area covering over 60% of the West Bank where the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) have both administrative and security control.
As part of this Israeli confiscation policy the IOA seized Ain al-Auja nature reserve the largest Palestinian nature reserve in the West Bank with an area of 22000 dunums.
Last April the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank publicly declared the confiscation of the nature reserve.
Israeli authorities have long declared hundreds of thousands of dunums into nature reserves for the benefit of settlement expansion.
Israeli left-wing anti-settlement organization Peace Now condemned the announcement as part of the Israeli confiscation policy in favor of settlement expansion.
