Annexation Files

Annexation is a unilateral act whereby a state applies its sovereignty, laws and powers to territory seized by force and incorporates it into its sovereign territory. The prohibition on annexing territory captured by force is a fundamental principle of modern international law. It emerged, as a lesson of the Second World War, from the understanding that recognizing a right to expand territory through war would encourage the use of force and undermine the foundations of the international order. The 1907 Hague Regulations and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention form the principal legal basis for the laws of occupation. They establish that occupation is temporary and does not give the occupying power sovereignty or ownership over the territory. Under these laws, the Military Commander has governing authority in the territory and is responsible for administering civilian life, maintaining public order and protecting the local population, which is considered protected. The occupying power must administer the territory as a trustee and for the benefit of this protected population until an agreement determines its status and future.

Israel occupied the West Bank, along with other territories, in 1967 and has kept it under military occupation ever since. In practice, Israel has systematically violated its obligations under international law from the outset. These include the explicit prohibition on transferring the occupying power’s population into the occupied territory and the prohibition on making long-term changes there. For decades, Israel has engaged in practices designed to entrench its control of the West Bank and create irreversible facts on the ground, thereby also violating the principle that occupation is temporary. Over the years, Israel has established a regime of domination, oppression and institutionalized discrimination between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank that amounts to the crime of apartheid.

While committing these systematic violations, for most of the occupation Israel continued to operate, at least ostensibly, within the legal framework of the laws of occupation. This framework placed certain limits on how Israel exercised control: it defined that control as temporary and left the Military Commander, at least formally, as the governing authority responsible for the territory’s administration. Officially, including in submissions to international courts, Israel presented its control of the West Bank as temporary belligerent occupation governed by the laws of occupation.

Annexation, however, does not necessarily require a formal declaration or the official application of sovereignty. It can also proceed through policies and practical measures that entrench the occupying power’s control over the territory. Since the occupation began, Israel has pursued a policy of creeping annexation in the West Bank. With the exceptions of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, both formally annexed in blatant violation of international law, Israel has refrained from formally annexing the territories it occupied. It has nevertheless pursued the annexation of the West Bank through other means.

One of the clearest manifestations of creeping annexation is the establishment and continued expansion of the settlement enterprise, based on systematically dispossessing Palestinians of their land and pushing them into enclaves. As part of this colonization project, the state has sought to “Judaize” the occupied territory, including by encouraging the transfer of Israeli civilians into Palestinian territory, making massive investments in civilian and security infrastructure for settlements, and taking over land and natural resources on a vast scale, all in flagrant violation of international law.

Through most of the occupation, Israel advanced annexation measures while maintaining the appearance of compliance with the legal framework of occupation and generally avoided overtly exercising sovereign powers in the West Bank. In recent years, however, Israel’s annexation policy has changed at an accelerating pace, both in the scale of the measures taken and in their nature. The ambition to annex the West Bank is increasingly reflected in the government’s actions and its members’ public statements. Israel is no longer content to entrench permanent control within the existing framework. It is now working to blur the distinction between temporary military rule and permanent civilian rule, and to remove the constraints imposed by the laws of occupation.

Since the formation of Israel’s 37^th government, this vision has driven a profound restructuring of how Israel governs the West Bank. At its core is the transfer of extensive powers over civilian affairs from the military to civilian bodies directly subordinate to the government. The goal is to gradually replace the framework of temporary military occupation with permanent civilian governing mechanisms. This change aligns with the government’s declared intention to advance annexation, even if only partial, of Area C. It comes with substantially increased settlement activity and extensive application of Israeli legislation to settlers.

Under the laws of occupation, the Military Commander is entrusted with the administration of the occupied territory on a temporary basis and as a trustee. The commander is bound by international law, which imposes restrictions intended to prevent the territory from being treated as part of Israel. The government seeks to get around these restrictions by transferring control to Israeli civilian bodies and politicians, tasked with expanding settlements and Israeli control. While the military framework remains, it is a shell stripped of substance. In place of temporary military government, permanent Israeli civilian rule is taking shape in the West Bank, serving the interests of the state and settlers. Palestinians, meanwhile, remain subject to a military regime of systematic discrimination and human rights violations, without civil or political rights. This is de facto annexation, cynically presented to the outside world as a mere organizational change.

The annexation vision now advanced by the Israeli authorities does not include making West Bank residents citizens with equal rights. Instead, Israel seeks to exercise sovereign control over land, planning, resources and infrastructure across most of the West Bank, while pushing the millions of Palestinians living there into separate, densely populated enclaves. These annexation measures entrench Israeli control and prevent the Palestinian people from exercising their internationally recognized right to self-determination.

The Annexation Files website brings together official decisions, legislative initiatives, actions on the ground and a range of other measures through which Israel is advancing the annexation of the West Bank, occupied in 1967. Its main categories highlight different aspects of the annexation process and provide an overall picture of how it is taking shape and progressing. By presenting these measures together, the website shows that Israel’s annexation of the West Bank is not a future scenario: it has already taken place, even without an official declaration. In other words, the establishment of settlements and permanent civilian governing mechanisms, together with the exercise of sovereign powers and the administration of the territory as an integral part of the sovereign State of Israel’s system of government, have established de facto sovereign control, amounting to annexation, which is prohibited under international law.