AP 38035-07-25 Peretz et al. v. Supreme Planning Council Subcommitte for Mining and Quarrying in the West Bank et al.

Date of submission: July 15, 2025

In June 2025 the Civil Administration Supreme Planning Council’s Subcommittee for Mining and Quarrying approved a plan to expand Nahal Raba Quarry (Wadi Rabah) in the West Bank. The plan enables resuming quarrying operations in the quarry near the Palestinian villages a-Zawiya and Deir Ballut. Work there was previously suspended after the quarry exhausted the natural resources in its territory. Expanding the quarry will likely cause severe and irreversible damage to the ecosystem in the area, which is part of a greater ecological corridor and a habitat for deer and other wildlife, and to the Palestinian residents’ quality of life. The Civil Administration’s decision in this matter contradicts the position of professional agencies such as the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the Ministry of Health and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, which all warned of grave environmental and health-related implications.

In July 2025, Yesh Din and One Climate activists petitioned the Administrative Affairs Court in Jerusalem demanding that the decision to approve the plan be rescinded. The petition argues that the Civil Administration’s planning agencies operated without authority and in violation of international law, which prohibits an occupying power from exploiting limited natural resources in the occupied territory for the benefit of its own industries and economy. It claims that the decision was taken without a proper environmental survey, involved concealing substantial information regarding the developer’s identity, and is contrary to the opinion of professional agencies that objected to the plan.

Background: Israel’s quarrying activities in the West Bank

Israeli-owned and managed quarries have been operating in the West Bank since the early 1970s. The lion’s share of the quarried substances from these quarries is transported to Israeli territory. This amounts to direct exploitation of limited natural resources that belong to the protected Palestinian residents and is therefore prohibited under the The Hague Convention and the Fourth Geneva Convention. And yet, Israel permits quarrying and mining operations to continue and has even approved the expansion of quarrying areas, while Palestinian industries rarely recieve such permits.

In response to Yesh Din’s petition to the High Court of Justice demanding quarrying and mining operations in the West Bank cease, the state announced it would not permit new quarries to be established in the West Bank. The Civil Administration later drafted criteria for exceptions to this rule pertaining to the expansion of active quarrying sites in existing quarries. The subcommittee’s decision in June 2025 to expand Nahal Raba Quarry violates the state’s committment and demonstrates how the policy of unlawful exploitation of natural resources in the occupied territory continues.

Approval of the plan – part of a sale agreement

Nahal Raba Quarry is operated by Hanson Israel, a subsidiary of the German corporation Heidelberg Materials (formerly HeidelbergCement). Both the public and the corporation’s shareholders levied harsh criticism against its quarrying operations in Wadi Rabah, which constitutes a violation of international law. This criticism led the corporation to try and sell the quarry in 2018, and that very same year the plan to expand the quarry was submitted to planning authorities in the West Bank. According to data obtained by Human Rights Watch, the sale agreement signed in 2020 is contingent on approval of the plan and a permit to renew quarrying operations.

In January 2020, the Subcommittee on Quarrying and Mining deliberated depositing the plan, and it was subsequently deposited for objections that summer. After several objections to the plan were heard, the plan was approved in June 2025. It was published for validation in July 2025.

The petition asks the Administrative Affairs Court to rescind the decision made by the Supreme Planning Council and the Civil Administration and strike down the plan to expand the quarry. The petitioners also asked the Court to issue an interim injunction that would prohibit validating the approved plan and prevent work from being carried out until the petition is decided.

Petition status: Pending