Italian activist Michela Cimenti is expected to arrive in Israel in the coming days to participate in provocative actions in Area C of the West Bank, according to sources monitoring pro-Palestinian activities in Italy. Cimenti's planned operations apparently include helping construct an unauthorized Palestinian school that she characterizes as "not just a brick building but a hard core of resistance."

The West Bank regularly attracts leftist and anarchist visitors who claim to assist Palestinians but frequently engage in various provocations against Israeli security forces. Earlier this week, Israeli authorities deported a British tourist following an investigation conducted in the Judea region and by the Samaria and Judea District Police.

The investigation revealed that the British tourist belonged to an organization advocating boycotts against Israel, had published content against police officers and Israel Defense Forces soldiers on social media, and violated a military order. Security forces detained her for questioning after she entered a closed military zone in southern Hebron Hills, disrupted public order, refused to identify herself to authorities, and threatened a regional security coordinator who arrived at the location.

Cimenti likely plans to arrive in the coming days, as she does every summer, based on a post published on her Instagram account. "Soon on this profile you'll see only cats and dogs because I'm forced to suspend and close it, as I won't be able to post from Palestine," she stated in a video published in Italian. "I'm forced to delete everything each time, and even more so in the last two years, to support all the voices that help Palestine," she added.

"This is a person who supports the 'Palestinian resistance' in an obsessive manner," the sources monitoring her activities explain. According to them, she deletes her content "to avoid arousing suspicion from Israeli authorities. She knows that if they discover her activities, they won't allow her to enter. She appears concerned that security personnel at Ben Gurion Airport will identify her as a pro-Palestinian activist."

One of the activities Cimenti apparently intends to conduct in Israel is constructing an unauthorized Palestinian school in Area C. "The things I'm going to do in Palestine we still don't publish for understandable reasons," she wrote recently.

Evidence suggesting she plans to participate in building the unauthorized structure comes from the continuation of her post: "I want to tell you about another project conceived by a dear friend I've known for many years – about building a school in Area C. If you want to support the project of building a school in Area C, which will not just be a brick building but also a hard core of resistance, because a school is not just a building – it represents something important. Share this initiative, it's important," she wrote.

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The Palestinian Authority has been systematically taking over land for over a decade, the Regavim non-governmental organization said in a report published this week. The group promotes Zionist land use and strives to protect Israel's natural resources.

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According to the report, 12 years since the introduction of the "Fayyad Plan," the PA has been taking over Area C, which under the 1993 Oslo Accords is under full Israeli control, by employing tactics such as "mass-scale construction on vast swaths of land; incentivized relocation of Arab residents of Area A and B into Area C; creation of physical infrastructures to support a network of illegal outposts (roads, water systems and electricity networks); widespread agricultural work on Israeli land and destruction archeological sites that confirm Jewish ties to the territory" – all supported and funded by European donors.

Put forth in 2009 by then-Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the plan was to create a de facto Palestinian state, not through negotiations with Israel, but by establishing facts on the ground – such as houses, farms and schools – in strategic areas throughout Area C.

According to Regavim data, the PA controls approximately one-quarter of Area C, of which 20% is taken up by Palestinian agricultural projects (20% of it on Israeli state land, absentees' land and IDF firing zones) and at least another 2.5% by illegal construction, including thousands of kilometers of illegal roads. In addition, the report said, the PA is planning, or has already begun constructing, illegal projects in another 5% of Area C.

"When viewed as a whole, the master plans are a clear statement of intent," the report said. "This massive effort aims to take control of the major traffic arteries serving the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, to disrupt Israeli territorial contiguity, to surround and isolate Israeli communities … to annex the Judean Desert and to lay siege to the Jordan Valley."

Regavim Director Meir Deutsch warned that unless Israel took immediate countermeasures, in only a few years, the Jewish state would face a hostile and irreversible new reality.

"We have been warming of the organized Palestinian takeover of open territories in Judea and Samaria for over a decade," he said. "Instead of stopping it, the state is giving the Palestinian Authority a hand and allows it to act in Area C as it pleases."

In response to the Regavim report, far-right Knesset member and Otzma Yehudit chief Itamar Ben Gvir lambasted the current government.

"The evil government sits with supporters of terrorism who are encouraging the Palestinian takeover of Area C. The government headed by [Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett must wake up before it is too late. We need to see the full picture and examine the consequences [of the PA's actions] on Israel's security."

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A salvage archaeological excavation that started last month at the Khirbet al-Taybeh site at Mount Hebron has uncovered Mamluk-era frescoes.

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Archaeologists were excited to discover the frescos.

"It's amazing, because we haven't found things like these in private homes from the Mamluk era," explains Hanania Hizmi, head of the Archaeology Unit in the IDF's Civil Administration.

"We are familiar with wall paintings and frescoes mainly from earlier periods, but not in the Muslim culture," Hizmi continued.

Archaeologist Dotan Traubman, who is overseeing the dig along with Ahiya Hager, added, "This is a world-class find [of the kind] that people travel to Greece and Rome to see."

Khirbet al-Taybeh, a recognized antiquties site since 1944, lies between two hills between the isolated settlements Telem and Adora. Excavations at the site began after residents of Telem informed a Civil Administration inspector about suspicious building activity there. Upon arrival, the inspector noticed a group of Palestinians who had begun a series of illegal projects.

Hizmi launched a salvage excavation to seek out any interesting finds that Khirbet al-Taybeh might be concealing. Despite its official antiquities status, the site had never been researched.

"We noticed that the terraces the Palestinians had set up included ancient stones, and their sifting had uncovered the top level of the structure," he revealed.

The frescos date back some 800 years and feature the same decorations used to embellished ceramic vessels in the same period.

"In the Islamic Period it was forbidden to portray human faces, and they drew flowers and animals," Traubman explained. "It was necessary to bring in an artist who is an expert in drawings like these and in the area of painted plaster, and the owner [of the building] was rich enough for him to create something you didn't see in every home – which is why this find is so rare and important, and should be on display in a museum."

For now, the archaeological work has stopped the illegal Palestinian construction. According to Telem secretary Baruchi Bronstein, "Everyone is aware of this place's strategic importance to the region. It connects the Palestinian communities to the Jewish ones, and it's clear that the war over it isn't over."

Head of the Har Hevron Regional Council Yochai Damari noted that the Palestinians' attempt to encroach on Area C, which is under Israeli control, is taking place throughout the region.

"Khirbet al-Taybeh is not the first or the only place where there has been an attempt to take over historical sites. Unfortunately, no one is doing much of anything, and we are left with the glum reality on the ground," Damari said.

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A decision by the IDF's Civil Administration that would severely cut back on the possibility of Israel settlements encroaching on privately-owned Palestinian land while also preventing the Palestinians from building illegally on land that is under Israeli control has been approved by the attorney general and is waiting for a green light from the nation's leadership, Israel Hayom has learned.

The IDF's Civil Administration, which operates under the auspices of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has recommended a process of regulation of land ownership in Judea and Samaria that would replace the unwieldy and lengthy process currently in use. A land survey would be conducted after which land belonging to Israel would be officially declared as such.

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How would it work? The land would be mapped, and anyone claiming ownership would be invited to presented documents proving the land is in fact theirs. Then a list of all lawsuits filed by people claiming to own land would be compiled, and each case would be investigated. Each case would resolve the status of a given piece of land, and its owners would be designated. These decisions could be appealed to a judge assigned to oversee the process of regulation. Once this process is complete, a list of all land ownership would be compiled and the lands would be officially registered. Once that registration is complete, there will be no further avenue for appeal.

After World War II, the British Mandate began a process of land ownership regulation. In 1948, the Jordanians continued the process in Judea and Samaria, and managed to complete approximately one-third of the work by the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured those territories. The lands whose ownership has already been regulated mostly lie in the Jordan Valley, northern Samaria, Maaleh Michmesh in Binyamin, and Mount Hebron.

Meanwhile, land ownership in Israel, with the exception of certain areas of the Negev Desert, was also clarified and registered. In 1967, the GOC Central Command issued a directive that froze the process of regulating land ownership. In the years that followed, a method of surveying the land was established.

The method was used to survey the land, and land that had not been worked for a long period of time was declared state-owned, allowing the government to declare ownership of some 780,000 dunams (193,000 acres) in what would become Area C. However, as time went on, the process became increasingly cumbersome and expensive, leading to a wave of objections, appeals, lawsuits, and petitions to the High Court of Justice filed by both Palestinian individuals and leftist organizations.

Currently, there are some 106,000 dunams (26,200 acres) of land in Judea and Samaria that have already surveyed but not declared state-owned land, and hundreds of thousands of dunams of land that is lying fallow that has not been surveyed or declared state property, meaning that dozens of settlements across Judea and Samaria are still awaiting regulation of their status.

The Civil Administration has a team that is charged with investigating the status of this land, and it carries out about two regulatory processes a year.

Recently, MK Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan contacted Defense Minister Benny Gantz and asked why it was taking the Civil Administration so long to declare land that had already been surveyed the property of the state.

In response to Dayan's request for information, a COGAT representative wrote: "Our primary recommendation is to regulate the land in Judea and Samaria gradually, with definitive and final results. The advantages of regulating land ownership are greater than the resources invested in declaring lands to be the property of the state, when they are attacked by appeals and in the courts, a long process that sometimes takes years."

The COGAT recommendation won the support of former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. Attorney-General Avichai Mendelblit looked into it and approved it. It was submitted to the Prime Minister's Office and to all the defense ministers who have held the post in the last two years. Now the recommendation is waiting for the government to implement it.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has started its own process of regulating land ownership and has some 600 PA employees working on claims. The PA is now claiming ownership of considerable land in Area C even though existing surveys show that it is was supposed to be declared Israeli land.

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The Civil Administration does not recognize land registration by the Palestinian Authority, but the more time passes, the greater the chances are that the Palestinians will be able to establish the land as theirs de facto.

A senior settlement official said Sunday that "the attorney general's recommendation is welcome news, a step that must be taken to finally provide a solution to the PA's eating away at state-owned lands and the many problems of regulating established, as well as young, settlements. This must be done without hurting any ownership rights of any part of the population. We hope that the leadership will adopt it."

Dayan said in response: "I'm a big supporter of establishing [Israeli] sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria. We need our eastern border to be the Jordan River. Until that happens, we must not leave the field empty. We need to ensure that the vast majority of settlements are regulated. Given the response from COGAT, I intend to apply pressure and take care that the response is adopted, and becomes a work plan, so that when we go back to talking about sovereignty, a situation will be created in which all settlements, outposts, and neighborhoods, are regulated. It will be a contribution to future generations," he said.

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Itamar and its outposts spread eastward for about eight kilometers (five miles) from Itamar itself to Gitit in the Jordan Valley. This is strategic settlement at its best. There's nothing like these living postcards to illustrate the vital link between the Jordan Valley and the hilltops.

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Over the years, various Israeli governments have helped this enterprise exist and grow, but did so under the table. The outposts of Itamar have never been regulated and recognized as legal settlements. They aren't alone. There are dozens more "Itamars": The Shilo bloc and its outposts, and Pnei Kedem and Tzur Shalom in Gush Etzion; as well as Sde Boaz, between Neve Daniel and Jerusalem; and Havat Gilad and Givat Assaf and Asa'el. They have all been orphaned and are under a dual threat. First, because life in these outposts is complicated. Many are not connected to the electricity grid, and lack the basic budgets, benefits, and services that regulated settlements get. They also have no legal standing; they exist on paper. Thousands of structures erected there or in other unregulated settlement neighborhoods are under threat of demolition by the IDF's Civil Administration.

The other threat is a political one – they are at risk of being uprooted and evacuated. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's repeated declarations (most recently with Jared Kushner at his side) that no settlement will be uprooted are to a large extent a delusion. So long as these communities are not defined as settlements, they are at risk of being eliminated. There are 26 obvious cases. Most of them were established 20 years ago or more. The Americans left them out of the map for the Trump peace plan because they are not recognized settlements. The Americans' map is Netanyahu's. The "plan of the century" is to a large extent his creation. The Americans say, rightly, that they cannot be more Israeli than Israel. A few years ago, the government decided to regulate the status of settlement outposts, but has done almost nothing to implement that decision. Netanyahu appointed veteran settlement leader Pinchas Wallerstein to head the project, but did not give him the tools he needed, and Wallerstein resigned.

Asa'el in the southern Hebron Hills is an outpost that is home to 70 families. It would be easy to regulate its status, but the decision has to be made. In 1983 a decision was made to found a settlement there, but the idea was frozen during the Oslo Accords process. Because the settlement was never actually established, the decision was canceled. Now it needs to be re-made, but the Netanyahu government isn't doing so much as that, even though Asa'el is located on state-owned land.

Last year, before the election, the government took a small step and declared Mevo'ot Yericho a settlement. Another possibility, attaching it to the settlement Yitav, was rejected. Dozens more outposts can be regulated exactly the same way. Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit needs to decide, just like he decided about Mevo'ot Yericho, whether to attach them to their "mother" settlements or – when that is not possible – to designate them independent settlements.

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For two years, Netanyahu has had on his desk a proposal of this nature that could save a 20-year settlement effort. The maps with and without them are very different. The outposts that have not yet been made settlements or neighborhoods of existing settlements are the difference between land and strategic contiguity with which we can live, or dozens of settlements that would be left up in the air, like a helium balloon, accessed only by a road that is surrounded by Palestinian areas.

The public needs to know the truth: the sky won't fall when Rechalim and Mevo'ot Yericho are regulated as settlements. It won't fall even if the government declares Avigayil and Asa'el settlements, or Pnei Kedem. There are dozens more like them that Netanyahu promised will not be evacuated. But so long as they do not hold the status of settlements or settlement neighborhoods, it's just an empty promise.

Even the proposal of a Basic Law that would require a national referendum for any changes to the map of Judea and Samaria, which MK Zvi Hauser (Derech Eretz) is now presenting to the Knesset and which is intended to prevent settlements in Judea and Samaria from being uprooted without a referendum – does not include these strategic outposts, only recognized settlements.

The threat to the very existence of these outposts, which have been home to thousands of Jews for two decades or more, is only part of the entanglement being slowly created in Judea and Samaria. It isn't only the declaration of Israeli sovereignty over 30% of the territory there that has been canceled or suspended. Construction in regulated, recognized settlements has also been frozen, and policing of illegal Palestinian construction in Area C is nearly non-existent.

The Civil Administration's Higher Planning Committee for Judea and Samaria has not convened for seven months, and the planning process for some 6,000 housing units is being repeatedly postponed. Although there is no cabinet decision to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria, construction is being held up in Har Gilo, Maaleh Adumim, Eli, Har Bracha, and other places. And it's not only the 6,000 units that are under delay; about half of the construction plans that have already been approved aren't moving ahead because of chronic understaffing in the Civil Administration. So the construction freeze is even wider spread.

Surprisingly, it was Defense Minister Benny Gantz who sided with the settlers this week, possibly to goad Netanyahu. Gantz announced he would be calling a meeting of the Higher Planning Committee this coming week in order to approve construction not only in consensus settlement blocs, but also in Beit El, Shilo, Nokdim, Har Bracha, and the southern Hebron Hills. The move requires Netanyahu's approval, so it's not clear what the announcement really means. But politically, at least, Gantz is opting to out-flank Netanyahu from the Right, thereby joining Yamina leader Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman, who have been doing the same when it comes to the settlements issue for months.

To all these quandaries we need to add the serious problem of law enforcement when it comes to the expanding illegal Palestinian construction in Area C. The Palestinians are putting up tens of thousands of houses in strategic locations. If this construction continues at the current rate, it will eventually decide the fate of Area C, and the dream of sovereignty will officially become history.

In the past decade, the number of illegal structures erected in Area C has grown from about 30,000 to some 50,000. The Palestinians know what they're doing, and are working consistently and are well-funded. Here, too, the government is failing to implement its own decisions. Only a year ago the cabinet decided to scupper the Palestinian Authority's attempt to take over Area C. It even asked the Defense Ministry to map the territory and appoint a director for the project who would present the cabinet with facts and recommendations. But in the meantime, nothing has happened.

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The paper has obtained the instructions Bennett recently issued to the security establishment.

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In the past few weeks, Bennett has held several meetings with high-ranking officers in the IDF's Central Command; the Coordinator for Government Activities in Judea and Samaria; and additional officials in the security establishment to define specific priorities for enforcement by the IDF Civil Administration. Bennett seeks a "total stop to illegal Palestinian construction within two years."

At a meeting in Bennett's office, top-ranking officials were presented with comprehensive data about a years-long Palestinian and European attempt to establish facts on the ground, according to which Area C – which is supposed to be under Israeli control and which comprises some 60% of all territory in Judea and Samaria – is home to some 200,000 Palestinians who live in about 25 recognized villages and hundreds of clusters of illegal housing.

Israel's security establishment estimates that over 1,000 illegal housing starts – the majority of which are funded by foreign money – are underway in Area C. These illegal construction projects have a combined value of tens of millions of dollars.

Participants in the meeting were shown a map that lays out the extent of the illegal Palestinian building activity, which Israel has done little to counter in recent years.

Defense and security officials call the illegal construction "a well-organized tactic by the Palestinian Authority to illegally take over large areas of Area C that are under Israeli control, as part of a broader strategic move."

The officials say the Palestinian plan is being carried out as part of the "Fayyad Plan," named after former PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The program includes many tools that the Palestinians and Europeans can use to wrest Area C away from Israel, such as foreign money going to fund illegal construction at key locations, like ones that threaten to cut off Israeli settlements. In addition, the Fayyad Plan calls to flood the Israeli legal system with petitions for injunctions against Israeli demolitions of illegal construction.

Bennett's plan to stop the Palestinians from chipping away at Area C demands action in four areas: Operational, economic, legal, and PR. He wants to change enforcement priorities to put an emphasis on eradicating illegal buildings in strategic locations rather than by numbers. For example, home demolitions would be carried out in accordance with Israeli interests, prioritizing illegal buildings next to roads or settlements.

Bennett also instructed the Central Command and the Civil Administration to work more closely to implement his plan and asked that the Civil Administration report to him monthly to update him on progress.

Meanwhile, the defense minister is weighing the possibility of allocating more resources to the Civil Administration for enforcement, which would entail hiring more personnel. Bennett also wants to take steps to stop the flow of European money that funds the illegal Palestinian construction in the first place, allowing the Fayyad Plan to flourish.

Touching on the issue of foreign funding, Bennett said in the meeting with defense officials that "We will no longer stand aside while the European Union builds political, illegal construction here. We have a position, and it is that this must be stopped." Bennett sent a similar message to EU envoys when he met with them two weeks ago.

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Speaking to i24NEWS and Israel Hayom in a special election broadcast, Shaked said she has been pushing a plan for years to apply Israeli sovereignty to Area C in the West Bank, which is home to Jewish settlements and accounts for over 60% of the West Bank.

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Under the proposal, which the former justice minister said is Yamina's primary goal, Shaked says Israeli law would be applied to the almost 500,000 Israelis there while citizenship or residency would be offered to the 100,000-200,000 Palestinian residents.

"I think there is a big opportunity to apply Israeli law while President Trump is still in office," Shaked told i24NEWS.

"He has almost two more years in office, let's hope that he will stay more. He is a very good friend of Israel and he has a very supportive team around him that supports Israel."

"There is a big opportunity for us in the next two years to start applying Israeli law even in the consensus area like Gush Etzion or Maaleh Adumim ... We need to start doing it."

Shaked also repeated the arguments she made in an interview to Israel Hayom's weekend supplement, published Friday, in which she said that the far-right Otzma Yehudit should drop out of the election, lest it waste votes and prevent the establishment of a right-wing coalition.

Shaked stressed that polls were no indication of what would actually happen on Election Day.

"In reality, the big parties take votes from the small parties … There is no chance Otzma Yehudit will pass the minimum electoral threshold, so it would be better for them to drop out," she said.

Switching to security policy and the recent escalation along the Gaza Strip border, Shaked said she believes "Israel in the end will have to do a military operation in Gaza."

Israel, she insists, will have to do "something severe that will hurt Hamas," which could include evacuating villages around the Gaza border for a few weeks so the army will be able to act and ensure that Hamas does not get new weapons every year."

This article was originally published by i24NEWS. 

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The PA's local authorities minister, acting under instructions from PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, instructed heads of Palestinian local authorities in Judea and Samaria to prepare long-term development plans for their areas, regardless of whether the lands in question fall under Palestinian or Israeli civil and security control or whether they are open public lands or currently populated.

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According to the Oslo Accords, Area A includes all Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria and the PA is in full control of civil and security matters there. Area B falls under civil control of the PA but under Israeli security control, while in Area C, which includes most Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, Israel is in charge of all civil and security matters.

A senior official in Ramallah discussed the PA's decision to disregard the A, B, and C division of Judea and Samaria, telling Israel Hayom that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks in Elkana on Sunday, in which the prime minister announced that Israel would annex more of the West Bank, "had nothing to do with the decision. This is a decision of principle that [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas made as part of the process of detaching [the PA] from Israel."

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Area C is entirely under Israel's security control.

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Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich (National Union) and Education Minister Rafi Peretz (Habayit Hayehudi) both supported the plan. Smotrich and Environmental Protection Minister Zeev Elkin, meanwhile, demanded that the plan include a stipulating that the country would plan the construction, and not the Palestinian Authority, due to humanitarian concerns.

Lengthy discussions had been held in recent days on the matter, amid concerns that the controversial program would raise the ire of right-wing leaders such as Smotrich, who opposes a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The development comes just days before an expected visit to Jerusalem by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is the lead architect of the Trump administration's Mideast peace plan.

Senior officials in the Netanyahu government told Kan News that the plan is an "extremely sensitive" matter, but refused to comment on whether Netanyahu's construction proposal is connected with the peace plan or Kushner's upcoming visit.

A delegation of senior US officials, led by Kushner and White House special envoy Jason Greenblatt, are set to visit the Middle East in the coming days where they are expected to make stops in Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The delegation is also expected to lobby for US President Donald Trump's peace plan in Egypt and Jordan.

"For the first time, the State of Israel will make sure that in Area C, there will only be construction for the Arabs who were original residents of the area since 1994 (Oslo B) and not Arabs who came later from Areas A and B," Smotrich said in a Facebook post.  "For the first time, the State of Israel will determine in a clear and unmistakable manner that original inhabitants of the area will be able to build and develop only in places that don't harm the settlement enterprise and security, and don't create territorial contiguity or a de facto Palestinian state. Places that don't serve the national interests of the Arabs, rather the national strategic interests of the State of Israel."

He continued: "For the first time ever, the State of Israel will implement its sovereignty over the entire territory and take responsibility for what happens inside it. Gone are the days of construction plans pushed by the PA that serve its interests. For the first time, the State of Israel will create a tool basket for real [law] enforcement that will be enacted to neutralize the Palestinian takeover plan."

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