Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has announced a plan to transfer civilian law enforcement responsibilities in the occupied West Bank to the Israeli police force, a move that has sparked significant concern among Palestinian officials and international observers. The announcement follows escalating criticism over the army’s handling of Israeli settlers, particularly a recent incident in the village of Qusra where a Palestinian home was besieged.
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Katz justified the shift, stating, ‘The army’s role is to combat Palestinian terrorism … and not chase hilltop youth.’ The Ministry of Defense indicated the police would establish a dedicated force to handle these civilian matters, citing a need to ‘optimize resource allocation.’
However, Palestinian officials and a broad coalition of political experts warn this represents a dangerous acceleration of illegal annexation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Al Jazeera that the settlers are the ‘spearhead in the process of annexation and Judaisation.’
Barghouti’s analysis points to historical parallels to the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948, highlighting the deliberate dismantling of Palestinian communities and the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He warned that placing security in the hands of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and illegal Israeli settlements under Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich constitutes ‘handing over the West Bank to the settlers.’
He stressed that this is an open war on the population, adding, ‘The actual ruler in the West Bank is the known fascist terrorist Smotrich.’
Analysts argue that replacing military occupation law with domestic civilian law fundamentally alters the legal reality of the territory. Mohanad Mustafa, an academic and researcher in Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that the decision legally erases the borders. He explained that by transferring power to a civilian police force, ‘this means that the government has annexed the West Bank’. He noted this move absolves the military of its obligations under international law, placing enforcement under Ben-Gvir.
Mustafa warned that Ben-Gvir, who previously oversaw the demolition of thousands of Arab homes in Israel, will now command the police to ‘support the settlers more and more and push them more and more towards deepening their repression and terrorism against the Palestinians’.
Palestinian leadership strongly condemned the mandate, with Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, describing the move as a ‘blatant violation of international agreements and an attempt to ‘impose Israeli law and sovereignty over the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to entrench the illegal annexation of Palestinian land’’. Palestinian group Hamas echoed this sentiment, releasing a statement calling the order a ‘dangerous step on the path to imposing de facto annexation’ that provides ‘cover and more protection for the escalating attacks and crimes of the settlers’. The Palestinian Authority has accused the Israeli government and its military of sponsoring settlers’ violence. Even Israeli members of parliament have accused the army of being complicit.
Analysts stress that relieving the military of its duties essentially deputises settler violence, turning them into an armed extension of the state.
Nihad Abu Ghosh, an expert in Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that there is no contradiction between the army and the settlers. He noted that the settlers have evolved into ‘fascist militia formations’ that perform the state’s dirty work. He added that these militias carry out roles that ‘require evading any discipline, rules, or laws’ to achieve a ‘creeping, gradual annexation to make it a reality’.
Shadi al-Shurafa, a researcher in Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that the situation is a textbook definition of segregation.
‘We are facing an application of an overt racist apartheid system in the West Bank,’ al-Shurafa said, noting it involves one regime operating with two entirely different laws based on ethnicity.
He added that the underlying project has full US backing, noting that “all that is happening now is an American-Israeli plan and there is harmony between the two right-wing administrations in Washington and here in Israel”.
Andrew Whitley, a former United Nations official and director of the Balfour Project, stressed that the planned transfer is ‘completely illegal’ and urged immediate global intervention.
He told Al Jazeera that ‘the Palestinian state is disappearing before our eyes’, calling for the international community to move beyond rhetoric and implement sanctions to halt the rapid erasure of the Palestinian presence.”
Source: Al Jazeera
