How Does Israel Use Military Seizure Orders for Land?
About 700 dunams near Rujeib were taken under Order 16/79 in 1979, and the Supreme Court annulled it as to 125 dunams. Israel publishes no running total.
About 700 dunams near the village of Rujeib were placed under military possession by Order of Possession 16/79, signed on 5 June 1979 by the commander of the Judea and Samaria area. The Supreme Court of Israel ruled on 22 October 1979, in HCJ 390/79 Dweikat v. Government of Israel, that the order was invalid as to the petitioners’ registered plots, about 125 dunams, and named Article 52 of the Hague Regulations as the authority under which such an order is made. Israel’s bodies publish no running total of seizure orders, so the quantities in the record are case by case.
| Figure | What it counts | Who published it | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| About 700 dunams | Territory covered by Order of Possession 16/79 near Rujeib | Supreme Court of Israel, HCJ 390/79 | Order signed 5 June 1979 |
| About 125 dunams | Petitioners’ registered plots, the land the annulment reached | Supreme Court of Israel, HCJ 390/79 | Judgment of 22 October 1979 |
| 30 days | Compliance window given to respondents 1 to 4 to vacate settlers and structures | Supreme Court of Israel, HCJ 390/79 | From 22 October 1979 |
| 8 articles | Length of Military Order 59, which creates the Custodian of Government Property | Commander of IDF Forces in the West Bank Area | Signed 31 July 1967, in force 7 July 1967 |
| 105 outposts | Unauthorized outposts known to the author, stated as probably not the true number | Prime Minister’s Office of Israel | March 2005 |
| 26 of those 105 | Outposts standing on State land, on the opinion’s own four-way classification | Prime Minister’s Office of Israel | March 2005 |
Dweikat sets seizure on Article 52, for the army’s needs
The Supreme Court of Israel held in HCJ 390/79, delivered 22 October 1979 by a panel of five, that requisition of privately owned land for a civilian settlement “is potentially justified under Article 52 of the Hague Regulations,” and only “when it is proved, according to the facts of the case, that military needs were those which in practice brought upon the decision to build a civilian settlement at the relevant site.” The Court read that authority narrowly: “the military needs discussed in this article cannot be construed to include, by any reasonable interpretation, national security needs in their broad sense.” The petitioners were the registered owners of the land, and the operative order required respondents 1 to 4 to vacate from those lands the civilian settlers who had settled on them from 7 June 1979, together with any structure built on them.
On the facts of that order, the Court found the sequence inverted: the Chief of the General Staff answered the Court’s questionnaire, “I did not approach the political echelons with a proposal to build the settlement in Elon Moreh,” and “There was no preexisting plan to build a civilian settlement on the relevant site approved by a competent military authority.” Justice Witkon added that the burden lies on the respondents, and that “it is not sufficient that the commander sincerely and subjectively believes that the taking of possession was essential, in order to place the question beyond judicial review.”
A seizure order is temporary, and Landau tied that to duration
The Supreme Court of Israel stated a second and independent ground: “a military administration cannot create within its territory ‘facts on the ground’ for the purposes of its military needs that were in advance intended to exist past the end of the military rule in that area, when the fate of the territory after the end of the military rule is yet unknown.” The judgment decides one requisition. It surveys no practice, counts nothing beyond the two orders before it, and expressly declines to decide the case under Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
| Order | What it covered | What the Court did |
|---|---|---|
| Order of Possession 16/79 | About 700 dunams near Rujeib, including the petitioners’ about 125 registered dunams | Declared invalid as to the petitioners’ lands, with 30 days to comply |
| Order of Possession 17/79 | The access road lands | No order made, “as none of the petitioners hold any ownership rights for the road lands” |
Source: Supreme Court of Israel, HCJ 390/79 Dweikat v. Government of Israel, judgment of 22 October 1979. The English text is an unofficial translation; the Hebrew governs.
Military Order 59 governs government property, not seizure of private land
Military Order 59, the Order Concerning Government Property, was signed on 31 July 1967 by the commander of the West Bank Area and came into force on 7 July 1967. It is a separate instrument from a possession order made under Article 52, and it reaches a separate class of land.
- It runs to 8 articles, in Hebrew and Arabic, and defines Government Property by who owned it on the determining date, 7 June 1967, chiefly property belonging on that day to an enemy state or to a corporation in which such a state held any right.
- Article 1 creates the office the regime runs through, the Custodian appointed by the military commander for the purposes of the order.
- Article 2 is one sentence: the Custodian may take possession of government property and take any step he considers necessary for that purpose.
- Article 5 preserves a transaction made in good faith between the Custodian and another person even if the property is later shown not to have been government property at the time.
- The issuing authority’s index lists nine amendments to the order, the last being Order 1508. Neither the Israeli state nor the issuing authority publishes an English text of it.
The State land route that Order 59 sits alongside is treated separately in the Ottoman Land Code’s three-year rule.
The 2005 opinion records outposts standing on seized land
The Prime Minister’s Office of Israel published in March 2005 a summary of the opinion on unauthorized outposts, which recorded 105 outposts known to its author and stated in the same breath that this “probably does not reflect the true number of outposts in the area.” Its land classification has four categories and does not total them: 26 on State land, 7 on survey lands, 15 on Palestinian private property and 39 on mixed lands, with a further remainder whose nature the author had not resolved. The opinion applies a 1979 government resolution, taken after the Elon Moreh judgment, that Israeli settlements be established only on State land.
| Land status | Outposts |
|---|---|
| Mixed lands | 39 |
| State land | 26 |
| Palestinian private property | 15 |
| Survey lands | 7 |
Source: Prime Minister’s Office of Israel, Summary of the Opinion Concerning Unauthorized Outposts, March 2005. The four categories total 87 of the 105 recorded; the opinion prints no total and the land of the remainder was unresolved.
The Commission to Examine the Status of Building in Judea and Samaria published its report in July 2012, and concluded that “the establishment of settlements cannot in and of itself be considered to be illegal,” recommending that municipal jurisdiction be fixed by order for each settlement. Israel’s two government-commissioned reviews of that record are set out at unauthorized outposts.
No Israeli body publishes a count of seizure orders in force
No consolidated figure for the number of military seizure orders in force, their combined area in dunams, or the number of renewals is published by the Civil Administration, the Ministry of Defense, the Central Bureau of Statistics or the State Comptroller. The State Comptroller of Israel published in May 2022 a follow-up audit of the Samaria and Judea District of the Israel Police, examining policing capability from February to August 2021; it reports 12,865 cases opened in the district in 2020 for disturbing public order, security violations and damage to property, and 48,371 traffic tickets, and it publishes no seizure-order count. Sections of that audit were published under confidentiality, so its counts are floors over a partly published document. What Israel’s record does carry is per case: about 700 dunams under Order 16/79, and about 125 dunams annulled.
Which figures on this page may not be added together?
The 700 dunams and the 125 dunams describe one site under one order and may not be scaled to any territory-wide total. The 105 outposts and the four land-status figures beneath it come from a March 2005 opinion that states 105 is probably an undercount, and 26 plus 7 plus 15 plus 39 leaves 18 outposts whose land the author had not resolved, so any total drawn from those categories is a floor. The police audit’s 12,865 case openings and 48,371 traffic tickets belong to different universes and may not be summed or divided into one another. A possession order under Article 52 and government property under Military Order 59 are different instruments over different classes of land, and their figures are not one series.
Questions readers ask
Who signs a seizure order?
Order of Possession 16/79 was signed on 5 June 1979 by the commander of the Judea and Samaria area, as recorded by the Supreme Court of Israel in HCJ 390/79.
Does a seizure order change who owns the land?
The petitioners in HCJ 390/79 were the registered owners of the land the order covered, and the Supreme Court of Israel ordered the respondents to vacate the settlers and structures from those lands within 30 days.
What authority did the Court say a seizure order rests on?
Article 52 of the Hague Regulations, which the Supreme Court of Israel read as covering the needs of the army of occupation and not, in the Court’s words, “national security needs in their broad sense.”
Did the Court hold that settlement is unlawful?
No. The Supreme Court of Israel stated that requisition of private land for a civilian settlement “is potentially justified under Article 52,” and decided this order on its facts.
Did the judgment decide the Geneva Convention question?
It did not. Deputy President Landau wrote that he would “refrain from discussing the matter before us in terms of section 49(6) of the Geneva Convention,” which he described as treaty law not binding in an Israeli court, while treating the Hague Regulations as customary law that binds the military administration.
How much land did the annulment actually reach?
About 125 dunams, the petitioners’ registered plots, out of the roughly 700 dunams the order covered, per the judgment of 22 October 1979.
What happened to the access road order?
The Supreme Court of Israel made no order on Order 17/79, “as none of the petitioners hold any ownership rights for the road lands.”
Which order deals with government property?
Military Order 59 of 1967, which creates a Custodian of Government Property and defines that property by who owned it on 7 June 1967.
Is there an official English text of Military Order 59?
The Collection of Proclamations, Orders and Appointments prints the order in Hebrew and Arabic, and no English text is published by the issuing authority.
How many times has Military Order 59 been amended?
The Military Advocate General’s index lists nine amendments, the last being Order 1508.
How many outposts stood on State land in 2005?
26 of the 105 outposts recorded in the March 2005 summary published by the Prime Minister’s Office of Israel.
Which body counts seizure orders in force?
None of Israel’s publishing bodies issues such a count, and the figures available in the record are per case, from the judgments.
Sources
- Commander of IDF Forces in the West Bank Area, 1967. Military Order 59, Order Concerning Government Property. Collection of Proclamations, Orders and Appointments, booklet 5, p. 162. Official or primary record.
- Israeli Supreme Court, 1979. HCJ 390/79 Dweikat v. Government of Israel (the Elon Moreh case). Judgment of 22 October 1979, unofficial English translation. Official or primary record.
- Levy, E. E., Shapira, T., and Baker, A., Commission to Examine the Status of Building in Judea and Samaria, 2012. Report on the Legal Status of Building in Judea and Samaria. Official or primary record.
- Prime Minister’s Office of Israel, 2005. Summary of the Opinion Concerning Unauthorized Outposts. Official record.
- State Comptroller of Israel, 2022. Samaria and Judea District of the Israel Police, Follow-up Audit. State Comptroller Report, May 2022, Chapter Four, p. 321. Official or primary record.
