This week, the campaign of land seizure that Israeli officials have largely pursued unofficially was, in places, declared aloud. In Hebron, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had “cancelled” the 1997 Hebron Agreement, stripping the Palestinian municipality of planning authority over the Old City and Ibrahimi Mosque.In Gaza, Israeli television reported that Israel, blocked by the United States from a new ground offensive, had indeed chosen what its own officials called “creeping” or “quiet” annexation – pushing its lines of control westward without announcement.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listAnd in central Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp, an Israeli strike killed Al Jazeera Mubasher cameraman Ahmed Wishah, the 12th member of the network’s staff killed in Gaza since October 2023.The week intensified the early summer’s trends so far: international censure mounting on the one hand, and on the other, a state extending its hold over Palestinian land in Gaza and in the West Bank, in apparent contravention of international law and agreements.Annexation – both quiet, and loudThe loudest move came in Hebron. Speaking at the inauguration of the new illegal settlement of Doran, Smotrich said that Israel had annulled the Hebron Accords and now held planning authority in the H2 zone of the occupied West Bank city containing Israeli settlements and the Ibrahimi Mosque.The Israeli Foreign Ministry partially walked the claim back, saying the agreement itself had not been cancelled but that a cabinet decision months earlier had transferred planning powers over the Jewish community and holy sites. The Palestinian Authority called the move illegal, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation warned it undermined the city’s status, and even the US State Departm …
