Israel is moving to "immediately dismantle all illegal settlement outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian land," Israeli media reported Tuesday citing army officials.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the decision would legalize other outposts, which were determined to be on "state lands."
The announcement came hours after Israeli troops took down two sheds in an outpost near Havat Gilad, an illegal settlement in the northern West Bank near Nablus.
Taking down the structures sparked rage in settler communities, prompting military and police to close streets in the northern West Bank, while protests supporting settlers erupted in Jerusalem and a series of acts of vandalism were perpetrated against Palestinians and their property.
According to Haaretz, the decision will be submitted to the High Court of Justice in response to 15 petitions demanding the outposts' demolition. The decision was said to affect three outposts inhabited by about 100 families.
Notably, the decision will not affect the house owned by slain army officer Eliraz Peretz, according to an exemption set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The same decision set in motion a plan to legalize other outposts. According to NGOs and monitoring groups, there are some 100 settlement outposts in the West Bank.
With three set to come down, another 97 could be legalized under Israeli law according to numbers provided by Peace Now.
Under international law, it is illegal to move civilian populations into occupied territory. All Israeli settlements and settlement outposts violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The settlements set for legalization are those which Israel has determined are built on "state land," which according to survey groups and reports by NGOs including Peace Now, is confiscated village lands belonging to West Bank communities and historically used for farming.
According to a 2006 report by Peace Now, over 50 percent of the lands settlements have been built on have retroactively been declared state lands. The areas in the occupied West Bank are often declared state land if it is not formally registered as private property, or if it is not cultivated for three years, under Ottoman law it can be declared state lands.
Under the British Mandate a process of registration of lands began, continued under Jordanian rule, but was halted by an injunction by Israel when its military occupied the West Bank in 1967.
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