BRAVE MAG

JERUSALEM, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved further measures to tighten Israel's control over the occupied West Bank and make it easier for settlers to ‌buy land, in a move Palestinians called "a de-facto annexation".

The West Bank is among ‌the territories that the Palestinians seek for a future independent state. Much of it is under Israeli military control, with ​limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing an election later this year, deems the establishment of any Palestinian state a security threat.

His ruling coalition includes many pro-settler members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land ‌captured in the 1967 Middle East ⁠war to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.

Ministers voted in favour of beginning a process of land registration for the first time since ⁠1967.

"We are continuing the revolution of settlement and strengthening our hold across all parts of our land," said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Netanyahu's government.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said land registration ​was a ​vital security measure designed to ensure control, enforcement, ​and full freedom of action for Israel ‌in the area to protect its citizens and safeguard national interests.

The cabinet said in a statement registration was an "appropriate response to illegal land registration processes promoted by the Palestinian Authority," and would end disputes.

The PA presidency rejected the cabinet's decision, saying it constitutes "a de-facto annexation of occupied Palestinian territory and a declaration of the commencement of annexation plans aimed at entrenching the occupation ‌through illegal settlement activity."

U.S. President Donald Trump has ruled ​out Israeli annexation of the West Bank but his ​administration has not sought to curb Israel's ​accelerated settlement building, which the Palestinians say denies them a potential state ‌by eating away at its territory.

The United ​Nations' highest court said ​in a non-binding advisory opinion in 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there are illegal and should be ended as soon as possible. Israel disputes this ​view, saying it has historical ‌and biblical ties to the land.

The land registration adds to a series of measures ​taken earlier this month to expand control.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer, Jaidaa Taha, Ahmed ​Elimam and Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel will begin a contentious land regulation process in a large part of the occupiedWest Bank, which could result in Israel gaining control over wide swaths of the area for future development, according to a government decision on Sunday.

The decision paves the way for the resumption of "settlement of land title" processes, which had been frozen in the West Bank since the Mideast War in 1967. It means that when Israel begins the land registration process for a certain area, anyone with a claim to the land must submit documents proving ownership.

"This move is very dramatic and allows the state to gain control of almost all of Area C," said Hagit Ofran, the director of Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now. Area C refers to the 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli military control, according to agreements reached in the 1990s with the Palestinians.

Israeli steps in recent months

The decision is the latest step to deepen Israeli control over the West Bank. In recent months, Israel hasgreatly expanded construction in Jewish settlements, legalized outposts andmade significant bureaucratic changesto its policies in the territory to strengthen its hold and weaken the Palestinian Authority.

Sunday's decision was first announced last May but required further development before it was approved in this week's Cabinet meeting.

Under the decision, Israeli authorities will announce certain areas to undergo registration, which will force anyone who has a claim to the land to prove their ownership.

Ofran said the process for proving ownership can be "draconian" and is rarely transparent, meaning any land that undergoes the registration process in areas currently owned by Palestinians is likely to revert to Israeli state control.

"Palestinians will be sent to prove ownership in a way that they will never be able to do," Ofran told The Associated Press. "And this way Israel might take over 83% of the Area C, which is about half of the West Bank."

The registration process could start as soon as this year, she said.

The proposal had been put forward by some of Israel's far-right members of the ruling coalition, including the Minister of Justice Yariv Levin. "The government of Israel is committed to strengthening its grip on all its parts, and this decision is an expression of that commitment," he said.

A 'dangerous escalation'

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' office in a statement called the decision "a grave escalation and a flagrant violation of international law," which amounts to "de facto annexation." It called on the international community, especially the U.N. Security Council and the United States, to intervene immediately.

Previous U.S. administrations have sharply condemned an expansion of Israeli activity and control in the West Bank, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a particularly close relationship with President Donald Trump. The twomet last week in Washington, their seventh meeting in the past year.

And yet Trump has opposed annexation, Ofran noted.

Palestinians are not permitted to sell land privately to Israelis, thoughmeasures announced last weekaim to nullify this. Currently, settlers can buy homes on land controlled by Israel's government. Last week's decision also aimed to expand Israeli enforcement of several aspects of in the West Bank, including environmental and archaeological matters in Palestinian-administered areas.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 from Jordan and sought by the Palestinians for a future state. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in these areas to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Jordan's Foreign Ministry in a statement called on the international community to "assume its legal and moral responsibilities, and to compel Israel, the occupying power, to stop its dangerous escalation."

Over 300,000 Palestinians are estimated to live in Area C of the West Bank, with many more in surrounding communities dependent on its agricultural and grazing lands, including plots for which families retain land deeds or tax records dating back decades.

Associated Press journalist Areej Hazboum in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

MUNICH, Germany − The leaders ofDenmark and Greenlanddo not think the crisis over the Arctic territory has ended and believe PresidentDonald Trumpis still "very serious" about acquiring the territory.

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark's prime minister, and her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen, made the comment about the semi-autonomous Danish island while appearing at theMunich Security Conferenceon Feb 14.

"I think the desire from the U.S. president is exactly the same," said Frederiksen, when asked during a panel how to describe the situation now that formal talks over the issue have begun. "He's very serious about this," she said.

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Responding to the same question about whether the talks wouldappease Trump, Nielsen said "we cannot lower our shoulders." He said that Trump's desire to acquire Greenland was "still there."

Their lingering anxiety over Trump's interest inGreenlandcomes even though both leaders said they held constructive talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the conference. The United States, Denmark and Greenland launched talks in late January to resolve the diplomatic crisis.

But virtually no details about the discussion have been made public beyond a statement from Trump while he was attending theWorld Economic Forumlast month, when he said the "framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland" had been reached.

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Greenland and Denmark caught by suprise

That announcement appeared to catch Denmark and Greenland by surprise. And NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte later clarified that he did not discuss Greenland's sovereignty with Trump.

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"I hope we can find a solution to all this," Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters, including USA TODAY, on the sidelines of the conference in Germany's Bavarian capital.

Nielsen said the saga was taking a toll on theGreenlandic people, who have repeatedly expressed in polls that while they want eventually to become independent of Denmark, they have no interest at all in becoming American.

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"If I think about my people, we are so proud. We live in a harsh environment, we are resilient, we live in a land where nobody was able to live for many, many, many years. There's a reason why we are the ones left," Nielsen joked during a discussion aboutArctic security. His statement drew laughter from the audience.

"The paradox," he added, "is that the Greenlandic people have never felt threatened, and now [for] the first time they feel unsafe for real, [it is] with an ally who is talking about acquiring them, buying them and so on. It's outrageous."

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'Red line.'Greenland shuts down Trump on sovereignty for US bases

Frederiksen said Denmark is willing to work with the Trump administration to find a solution but "there are of course things you cannot compromise on." She named a state's sovereignty and territorial integrity as two of those things.

A seniorGreenlandic officialpreviously told USA TODAY that an idea floated by Trump that the United States could effectively take ownership of American military bases in Greenland also marked a "red line."

Frederiksen said that revising a 1951 defense agreement between Denmark and the United States likely offers a "very easy" way for Washington to "have a stronger footprint in Greenland." Trump has said his desire to acquireGreenlandis driven by a combination of national security strategy and access to natural resources.

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NATO said on Feb. 11 that it had launched a mission to strengthen its presence in the Arctic, part of an effort to defuse tensions within the alliance prompted by Trump's push to acquire Greenland from Denmark.

"We don't think it's over," said Frederiksen in Munich.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Denmark, Greenland worry Trump still wants to take control