The departure of the Israeli far-right government with its project to expand the settlement cancer towards the city of Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, provided more evidence of the occupation authorities’ direct involvement in a plan to undermine the foundations on which the Palestinian state can be built in the future, and was embodied recently by the announcement by its senior officials of “cancelling the “Hebron Agreement” with the aim of imposing a new settlement reality in the city that has been under Palestinian civil administration for decades.
Analysis / Abu Bakr Abdullah
The Israeli occupation government’s decision to strip the municipality of the city of Hebron in the West Bank, which is administratively and legally affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, of administrative powers, granting building permits, and initiating procedures to build 576 housing units in the city caused an earthquake that extended beyond the Palestinian interior to the Israeli one, especially as it revealed the widespread influence of the Israeli extreme right and its efforts aimed at undermining the “Oslo” Accords and imposing a reality on the ground that prevents the establishment of a future Palestinian state in accordance with the principle of the “two-state solution.”
The far-right project, which recently extended to the city of Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank with a Palestinian majority and containing the Ibrahimi Mosque, revealed a further Israeli strategy towards this city, which for decades has been subject to Palestinian administration under a special executive agreement attached in 1997 to the “Oslo” Accords and historically known as the “Hebron Agreement” after it was divided into two regions subject to Palestinian and Israeli control.
The harbingers of this project appeared last February after the extremist Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich asked the political and security cabinet to approve a project to withdraw planning and construction powers from the Palestinian Authority in Area (H2) within the framework of his declared project to deepen Israeli control over the West Bank, which subsequently culminated in his announcement of the cancellation of the “Hebron Agreement” in conjunction with his laying the foundation stone for the “Doron” settlement in Mount Hebron, in what the Palestinian Authority considered an undermining of the peace path and the “Oslo” Accords.
Despite the entity’s government’s attempt to mitigate the diplomatic repercussions raised by this step by saying that the decision did not completely cancel the “Hebron Agreement,” the statements of the leaders of the extreme right were clear in their efforts to undermine the essence of the “Hebron Agreement” and deal a fatal blow to the remaining transitional agreements signed under international auspices.
Hebron Agreement
The “Hebron Agreement” was signed on January 15, 1997, between the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and the Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term. It was then considered an executive agreement complementary to the second “Oslo” Accords signed in 1995.
The agreement attempted to develop solutions to the complex situation of the city of Hebron, which includes settlement outposts in its heart. It stipulated that the city be divided into two main areas, the first being the H1 area, which constitutes about 80% of the city’s area with a Palestinian population majority. Security and civil powers therein were completely transferred to the Palestinian Authority, including planning, construction, organization, and management of sacred facilities such as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and some historical sites in the city.
As for the second area, it was the H2 area, which constitutes about 20% of the city, and according to the “Hebron Agreement,” it remained under Israeli security control because it included some Jewish settlements, while some of its parts remained under the administration of the Palestinian Authority.
Under the agreement, the occupation withdrew its forces from the area classified as H1, and the Palestinian Authority assumed responsibility for civil and security administration, in exchange for the entity’s government maintaining security control over large parts of the area classified as H2.
Objectives and accounts
The extreme right-wing minister, Smotrich, who also holds the position of minister responsible for settlements in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, violated the agreement a few days ago by announcing the entity’s government’s decision to strip the Hebron Municipality of the Palestinian National Authority of planning and building powers in the H2 area, including religious and archaeological sites, announcing “the cancellation of the Hebron Agreement,” which he described as “one of the most absurd provisions of Oslo.”
The decision, which transferred powers entirely to the Israeli Civil Administration and planning bodies, was based on the pretexts of “non-cooperation” and “necessary amendment,” but it aimed to facilitate settlement expansion in the city, and gave the green light to build new settlement units after removing the legal obstacles that prevented doing so under the Palestinian administration of the region.
This step was not new for Smotrich, who belongs to the extremist religious movement that opposes the “Oslo” Accords and has always adopted trends that consider the West Bank part of the “Land of Israel” and recently adopted the idea that transferring the powers of the Palestinian Authority is the appropriate way to strengthen Israeli control over the city of Hebron and dismantle what remains of the “Oslo” arrangements.
Smotrich has always sought full control over the Ibrahimi Mosque and the historical sites. He previously transferred the powers of engineering and planning supervision over the Ibrahimi Mosque and its surroundings and other historical sites to the Israeli side in order to reduce the Palestinian area in the city and impose a new reality that reduces the geographical area necessary for the establishment of a Palestinian state in accordance with the principle of the “two-state solution” and in return continues the march to extend full Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
Since October 7, 2023, the Smotrich administration has established at least 43 new settlement outposts in the West Bank, most of them agricultural settlement outposts, focusing on land seizure and systematic expulsion of Palestinians.
However, his recent step in Hebron sparked angry reactions not only at the internal Palestinian level, but also at the Israeli internal level, as the Palestinian presidency warned of the seriousness of this measure and described it as “a serious violation of the political and legal status of the city and a blatant violation of international law,” while Israeli opposition circles considered it “an irresponsible step driven by internal political calculations that will inevitably lead to escalation of tension and detonation of the security situation in the West Bank,” given the religious and historical sensitivity of the city of Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque.
Violation of treaties and laws
From a legal standpoint, it can be said that the entity’s authorities’ move towards the “Hebron Agreement” represented a blatant and direct violation of the signed bilateral agreements. It also represented a violation of the provisions of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, which view Smotrich’s step as part of the “creeping annexation of the West Bank” policy prohibited by the United Nations Charter, which prohibits seizing the lands of others by force.
On the other hand, the Israeli decision represented an undermining of the “Oslo” Accords, which stipulated that both parties refrain from taking any unilateral steps that would change the legal or field status of the Palestinian territories before final status negotiations.
From the perspective of international humanitarian law, the West Bank, including the city of Hebron, is subject to the provisions of international humanitarian law as “occupied territories,” specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of 1907.
Article 49 of the agreement prohibits the occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population to the territories it occupies, which is exactly what Smotrich’s move led to, which directly targeted the expansion of the settlement cancer in the city of Hebron.
International law prohibits the occupying power from making permanent or fundamental changes in the legal and administrative system of the occupied country, unless this is due to compelling military necessity or in the interest of the population under occupation, while the Israeli move to withdraw powers from the Palestinian Authority in favor of the settlers directly violates this principle.
The overwhelming majority of international organizations, led by the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Court of Justice, consider the West Bank, including the city of Hebron, to be occupied territory. They also consider the Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, and any measures aimed at unilaterally changing the legal or demographic status of the occupied territories contradict international law.
And this is not all. There is a file of UN resolutions issued by the Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly that condemn and nullify such measures, including, for example, Security Council Resolution No. 2334 (2016), which clearly affirmed that Israeli settlement in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, “does not have any legal legitimacy and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law,” not to mention its demand that Israel immediately stop all settlement activities.
In addition to the previous resolutions (338, 446, 242, 452, 465), in which the Security Council affirmed the inadmissibility of seizing lands by force and considered all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, or administrative structure in the occupied territories “null and illegal.”
What’s next?
In Palestinian and Israeli accounts, the city of Hebron is not seen as an ordinary city. In fact, it is almost the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, and includes the Ibrahimi Mosque. It also contains settlement outposts within the Palestinian urban fabric, and any change in its legal status is seen as a political message to completely change its legal status.
The seriousness of the latest Israeli decision does not lie in the amount of geographic space that it is trying to devour politically and legally, but rather in that it is a test of how serious Israeli governments are in fulfilling their obligations and the extent of their involvement in amending or bypassing previous agreements without facing internal or international pressures that force them to back down.
Looking from a deeper angle at the recent Israeli decision reveals major strategic risks that do not lie only in the entity’s efforts to gradually annex West Bank lands and reduce the Palestinian area, but rather in the fact that it may constitute a legal and administrative precedent that may open the door for the Israeli government in the future to transfer more powers in other regions to Israeli parties in what may be considered deliberate measures to dismantle the “Oslo” system that has governed the Palestinian-Israeli relationship for more than three decades.
It is certain that what happened to the city of Hebron recently was not an isolated exceptional case, as statements by the heads of the Israeli extreme right prove every day that it is part of an accumulated path to gradually annex Palestinian lands in the West Bank, expand settlement, and weaken the Palestinian Authority financially and politically.
The evidence for this is that the recent Israeli move directly aimed to undermine an agreement that is considered one of the most prominent executive agreements emanating from “Oslo” in order to support the tendencies of extreme right-wing governments that reject the idea of establishing a Palestinian state according to the principle of the two-state solution.
Smotrich’s statements and declared positions over the past years clearly reveal two strategic goals of the extreme right: the first: gradually reducing the powers of the Palestinian Authority after it has constituted an obstacle to settlement projects in the West Bank for decades, and the second: expanding direct Israeli administration over new areas of the West Bank, in a way that helps create a new reality that makes a return to the two-state solution impossible.
It is difficult to view Smotrich’s latest move as an administrative issue related to construction and planning in Hebron. In fact, it carries a message that an important part of the Israeli right no longer deals with the Oslo Accords as a permanent framework that must be preserved, but rather as temporary arrangements that can be modified or bypassed when they conflict with its political projects.
Here it should be noted that continuing the far-right policy of transferring powers, expanding settlements, and reducing the role of the Palestinian National Authority may lead to one of three scenarios.
The first: the survival of the Palestinian Authority while losing more influence and powers. The second: the imposition of new arrangements that make the Authority closer to a local administration with limited powers. The third: which is the most dangerous, causing a collapse in the current system, leading to a wide security and political vacuum in the West Bank that facilitates the process of being swallowed.
All the likely paths undoubtedly represent a threat to the two-state option. The Oslo Accords signed in the 1990s laid out a basic vision, which is the establishment of a transitional Palestinian authority, transferring increased powers to the Palestinians, and proceeding with final status negotiations that ultimately lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. This is opposed by the policies of the extreme right, which work to gradually reduce Palestinian powers, expand settlement, and impose a new reality that makes the establishment of an independent Palestinian state impossible in the foreseeable future.
