WEST BANK (Middle East Eye) – The Zionist regime’s decision to start the process of registering the ownership of land adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Al-Quds risks enabling a takeover that has “severe far-reaching implications”, rights groups warn.
The regime’s ministry of judiciary affairs last week initiated the “settlement of land title procedure” in Abu Thor area as well as the Umayyad Palaces site adjacent to the southern wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The procedure is using a regime fund allocated to “reduce socio-economic gaps”.
However, the fund has been largely utilized to register land for illegal settlements and will ultimately lead to further Palestinian dispossession, according to a joint statement by Israeli rights groups Ir Amim and Bimkom seen by Middle East Eye.
The Al-Quds-based NGO said there is speculation that the occupying regime may be attempting to register the area south of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“[The procedure] carries possible disastrous ramifications for hundreds of Palestinian homes in Abu Thor, while the other has an acute potential for escalating tensions due to its highly sensitive location in close proximity to Al Aqsa,” the joint statement read.
Sheikh Najeh Bakirat, the deputy director of the Al-Quds Islamic Waqf, said on Monday that changing the ownership of Umayyad Palaces is invalid and breaches the Geneva Convention, according to Palestinian media.
The occupying regime’s control of East Al-Quds, including the Old City, violates several principles under international law, which stipulates that an occupying power has no sovereignty in the territory it occupies and cannot make any permanent changes there.
Almost 90 percent of land in East Al-Quds is unregistered since regime authorities halted registration following its occupation of the city in 1967.
In 2018, the regime began for the first time promoting the “settlement of land title procedure”.
However, Ir Amim said in 2020, after a year of monitoring the process, that it was being used as a tool to “seize more land in East Al-Quds, leading to the expansion of Israeli settlements and further Palestinian dispossession”.