Israel confiscated 50,526 dunams of Palestinian land (just over five thousand hectares) in 2023, almost twice the figure of the previous year, the Central Bureau of Statistics denounced today.

The entity indicated in a press release that the country claimed 26,000 dunams (one dunam equals 1,000 square meters) in 2022.

Last year, Israel issued 32 seizure orders for about 619 dunams, four expropriation orders equivalent to 433 dunams and two state land declaration orders for about 515 dunams, it said.

It also decreed four modifications to the borders of nature reserves, which allowed them to seize 48,959 dunams as part of the systematic and continuous policy to control all Palestinian lands, he criticized.

This week the Palestinian government condemned Israel’s recent decision to confiscate 8,000 dunams of land (about 800 hectares) in the occupied West Bank.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina warned in a statement that peace and security in the Middle East is impossible without the establishment of a Palestinian state free of Israeli settlements and settlers.

He warned that the measure is a new challenge to the international community, which almost unanimously rejects Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the decision of the “fascist minister of the Israeli occupation government, Bezalel Smotrich.”

The Finance Minister declared these 8,000 dunams as “state lands,” as a prelude to allocating them for the expansion of the colonies.

The Foreign Ministry stated that this designation is a crime in the true sense of the word, aimed at advancing the colonization and annexation of the West Bank.