Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced, on August 14, 2026, that he had instructed the Israeli military command to prepare a plan to transfer powers for enforcing Israeli law in civil matters involving Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank to the Israel Police. Katz said the military should focus on what he described as “combating Palestinian terrorism,” while the Israel Police would be responsible for law enforcement and for maintaining security and public order in civil matters concerning settlers.

In the context of the declared policies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the move does not appear to be merely a redistribution of duties between two security institutions. If implemented, the transfer of powers being pursued by the Israeli government would place one segment of the population — “settlers in the West Bank” — under the responsibility of an Israeli civilian institution, while Palestinians would remain subject to Israel’s military rule.

This paper examines the circumstances, context, and potential implications of the Israeli defense minister’s decision amid a series of rapidly advancing decisions and measures by the Israeli government along the path of the West Bank’s “de facto annexation.”

West Bank: Two Systems for the Population of One Territory

Since occupying the West Bank in 1967, “Israel” has imposed a system of military rule over the territory and retained supreme authority in the hands of the Israeli military’s so-called Central Command chief, who exercises broad powers relating to security, movement, land, and military regulations.

Following the Oslo Accords, specifically the Taba Agreement, known as “Oslo II,” the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C. Under the agreement, the Palestinian Authority exercises civil and security control in Area A and civil control in Area B, while Israel retains security powers there. Area C, which constitutes around 60% of the West Bank, remains under full Israeli control. This division, however, did not effectively end the military occupation of the West Bank. Settlement expansion there quadrupled between the signing of the Oslo Accords and 2023.

Against this backdrop, and as Israeli settlement activity has expanded and the settler population in the West Bank has grown substantially, the relationship between the Israeli military and police has been characterized by overlapping responsibilities for enforcing the law on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The Israel Police already handles a significant share of investigations and prosecutions involving alleged crimes by settlers, while soldiers have the authority to detain settlers and hand them over to the police.

The military, Civil Administration, and police therefore operate within a shared enforcement system under the overall responsibility of the military commander. A practical problem arises when settlers commit offenses in areas the Israel Police does not routinely enter, particularly Areas A and B under the Oslo divisions, where the military has been the force present on the ground and capable of intervening and making arrests.

This is what makes the transfer of law-enforcement powers from the military to the Israel Police particularly significant. It does not simply shift administrative powers from one institution to another; rather, it opens the door to an expanded presence of an Israeli civilian agency in the occupied West Bank, applying Israeli civil law to one segment of the population — the settlers — while the military retains supreme authority and Palestinians continue to be governed under a system of military law.

This starkly exposes the application of an apartheid system against Palestinians and reveals the Israeli government’s vision for its relationship with them. Amnesty International documented in its 2026 report Israel’s continued reliance on military orders and regulations in the occupied Palestinian territory, alongside clear legal discrimination between Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, including within the judicial system.

Katz’s Decision and the Project to Annex the West Bank

The Israeli defense minister presents the decision as a functional correction: the military’s role, he argues, should be limited to security and fighting Palestinian organizations, while the police should be responsible for enforcing civil law. His office also announced that the police would establish an appropriate force to handle these matters and would receive the necessary powers and budgets.

The political significance of the decision, however, goes beyond this administrative justification. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir welcomed the move and described it as “an important stage on the path toward imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.” He also called for responsibility for the Border Police operating in the West Bank to be transferred to the police force under his authority, along with the transfer of powers concerning administrative detention and administrative restrictions on West Bank settlers from the defense minister and the military to the Ministry of National Security.

Israel Gantz, head of the Yesha Council, also directly linked the move to the annexation project, describing it as another step toward applying full Israeli sovereignty and administering civilian life in the settlements in the same way it is administered inside “Israel.” These statements reveal how leading figures in the settlement movement view the decision: not as a purely security-related measure, but as part of a gradual shift toward the de facto annexation of the West Bank through the application of Israeli civil law to its settlements.

According to Haaretz, Israeli military assessments hold that transferring law-enforcement powers in the West Bank from the military to the Israel Police cannot be implemented under the current legal framework and would require a change in the West Bank’s legal status. Legislation would be needed to define the source of legal authority in the territory, the chain of command, and responsibility for activities carried out there. The military reportedly views the complete legal solution as the imposition of Israeli sovereignty or the annexation of the West Bank.

The military also warns that transferring these powers to the police without changing the West Bank’s legal status would not end Israel’s responsibility for the territory under international law. According to the security assessment, as long as “Israel” has not formally applied its sovereignty to the West Bank, it would remain required to bear the responsibilities associated with administering the territory, even if some law-enforcement duties were transferred to the police. The military position also points to the possibility that Israeli officials could continue to face legal responsibility before international bodies and courts for events occurring in the West Bank.

This step forms part of a long series of measures taken by the Israeli government to strengthen Israeli civilian control over parts of the West Bank. Among the latest were Israeli decisions issued in February 2026, which included repealing the Jordanian law prohibiting the sale of Palestinian land to Jews in the West Bank. The decisions also stripped the Palestinian side of certain powers and entrenched Israeli control. Restrictions on movement, demolitions, evictions, settlement expansion, and control over land all work cumulatively to reshape the environment in which Palestinians live.

The West Bank at the Center of Israeli Electoral Competition

Israeli Defense Minister Katz’s decision cannot be separated from the context of Israeli electoral competition. “Israel” has entered the run-up to Knesset elections scheduled for October 27, 2026, while Netanyahu’s Likud party, to which Katz belongs, held its primaries in August amid intense competition. Within the party, questions of sovereignty over the West Bank and confrontation with the judiciary featured prominently in political discourse.

Interpreting the Israeli leadership’s increasingly extreme decisions through the lens of electoral competition and efforts to appeal to the Israeli public is plausible given trends within Israeli society. The West Bank and the treatment of Palestinians more broadly thus become part of an internal competition within the right-wing camp itself. The strength of right-wing trends in Israeli society is particularly evident among young people and Generation Z.

According to a Maariv poll published on April 2, 2026, 56% of those aged 18–22 — who will vote for the first time — identify as right-wing, while 22% lean center-right, 14% centrist, and only 8% left-wing. Netanyahu and his allies are therefore being pushed by more extreme currents and by a society shifting sharply to the right, encouraging efforts to turn existing control over the West Bank into declared Israeli sovereignty. At the same time, the Israeli government is presenting gradual approaches to the West Bank to its public as security and national achievements, without formally announcing comprehensive annexation that could provoke opposition and deepen international isolation.

It is therefore difficult to view the transfer of law-enforcement responsibility for settlers in isolation from this reality. The move is being announced at a time when the Israeli military faces growing criticism over settler violence. Opposition Knesset member Gilad Kariv of the Democrats said the measure sends “a clear message to Israeli army forces in the field: do not confront Jewish terrorism and the hilltop gangs, and anyone who does so will be punished.”

Meanwhile, Israeli police officials said Katz’s decision may in part be an attempt to shift criticism from the military to the police. Yedioth Ahronoth quoted an unnamed senior police official as saying: “Defense Minister Israel Katz’s move is intended to shift criticism from the IDF, the sovereign authority in the area, to the police.”

Conclusion

The Israeli minister’s decision to transfer responsibility for enforcing civil law on settlers from the military to the Israel Police has not yet entered into full effect in its final form. The military has been tasked with preparing a plan, while the details of the powers involved, their geographic scope, and the mechanisms of implementation remain to be determined. Its political significance, however, became apparent even before those details were finalized.

From the perspective of international law, the West Bank remains occupied Palestinian territory, while “Israel” is gradually moving toward integrating settlers and extending the reach of its civilian state institutions into the structure through which it controls the territory. Notably, this integration is not taking place through a single formal declaration of annexation, but through a series of decisions concerning land, planning, administration, security, and law enforcement.

For this reason, describing the decision merely as a “transfer of powers” may obscure its political substance. If implemented in the form advocated by the Israeli right, it would make the status of residents of any West Bank settlement more akin to that of residents of Tel Aviv, while making the presence of Israeli “civilian state” institutions in the West Bank more routine and less exceptional. Ben-Gvir and settler leaders have explicitly articulated such an interpretation by linking the move to the concepts of sovereignty and annexation.

At the same time, the continuation of violence, displacement, and settlement expansion, combined with the international community’s limited ability to turn condemnation into deterrent measures, creates an environment that allows the occupation to change facts on the ground. As “Israel” heads toward Knesset elections in October, amid competition among its various parties to win the support of a public shifting strongly to the right, the West Bank once again appears as an arena of political competition rather than merely a security file.

Thus, the most important question raised by Katz’s decision is not only: Who will stop a settler if they commit an offense? Rather: Which law will govern settlers’ lives in the West Bank in the future, and which system will continue to govern the Palestinians living alongside them?

NOTE: This text is adapted from original Arabic article.