Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Israel has appointed Yehuda Eliyahu as head of the Israel Land Authority, the government body responsible for managing and allocating state land, including settlements in the occupied West Bank. Eliyahu has supported the occupation of the West Bank and called for the full occupation of Gaza.
On Monday, ICC-wanted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu.
His selection was approved last week by a public appointments committee, though not unanimously.
The committee’s legal adviser opposed the move, saying Eliyahu’s decades-long personal relationship with Smotrich posed a conflict of interest.
The Israel Land Authority oversees around 92 percent of state land - roughly 20 million dunams - and manages a budget worth billions of shekels. It plays a central role in land allocation for housing, infrastructure and development projects, and is also involved in administering land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli described the appointment as “strategic”, saying it could be as significant as naming a new head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s powerful internal security agency.
Who Is Eliyahu?
A long-time associate of Smotrich, Eliyahu previously headed the Settlement Administration within the defence ministry, where he oversaw the largest Israeli land grab in the West Bank in recent memory.
He has also been a vocal advocate for expanding illegal settlement in northern Israel, particularly in the Galilee.
Eliyahu, a settler from the West Bank, co-founded the hardline group Regavim with Smotrich in the early 2000s. The organization says it is dedicated to protecting Israel’s “national lands and resources”.
Initially active in the West Bank, where it has worked to dispossess Palestinians from their land, the group has in recent years expanded its focus to the Negev and the Galilee.
The Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors land policies in the West Bank, says Eliyahu lives in a settlement outpost, where the forces and settlers prevent Palestinians farmers from cultivating their land.
The group added that, as head of the Settlement Administration - a post he was appointed to by Smotrich - Eliyahu oversaw the “largest project of land dispossession and illegal construction since Israel’s occupation of the West Bank in 1967”.
Kerem Navot added that Eliyahu's public service career "has been devoted to violating entire sections of Israel’s lawbook," stating that his appointment "is yet another expression of the extreme destructiveness of a corrupt, racist, and lawbreaking government".
The environmental organisation Life and Environment described the appointment as “inappropriate”, warning it could deepen discrimination against Palestinian citizens in southern Israel, who “already suffer from neglect and disregard in matters of planning and development”.
Eliyahu has previously backed the annexation of the occupied West Bank, saying the defence ministry was “preparing the groundwork” for the move.
He has also called for the full occupation of Gaza and the rebuilding of settlements there, urging a “full-force war” against the Strip to “eliminate this evil from the world”.
“Anyone who harms the people of Israel should be completely annihilated,” he said, adding that Gaza’s Palestinian population should be expelled “down to the very last one” and replaced with settlements on what he described as “our ancestral land”.
According to the financial daily Calcalist, several petitions challenging his appointment are expected to be filed with the High Court in the coming days.
The report said his chances of remaining in the post may be limited, citing his close ties to Smotrich and questions over his professional experience.
This comes as Israel’s security cabinet ratified a series of decisions pushed by Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz, enabling Israel to claim large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property”. Amnesty International said the expansion of illegal settlements and state-backed settler violence in the occupied Palestinian territory were “a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action”.
