Two Palestinian boys walk along the separation wall outside the Palestinian town of Abu Dis in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. AFP
Under the new rules, anyone without a permit is barred from crossing military checkpoints at the villages’ entrances. Palestinians on social media say the decision places their towns under full Israeli control and treats them as tenants rather than rightful landowners.
Israel’s Apartheid Wall has long trapped the villages of Beit Iksa, al-Nabi Samwil, and al-Khalayla; enclosed outside Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and cut off from the occupied West Bank.
Surrounded by settlements and Israeli-only roads, their Palestinian populations are denied building permits, basic services, and direct access to nearby towns.
Most hold Palestinian Authority (PA) IDs but cannot enter Jerusalem without a permit.
Even those with Israeli papers face pressure to "relocate", with some stripped of health insurance for living outside the city’s unilaterally drawn borders.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, settlement affairs expert Khalil Tafakji said Israel is working to “geographically dismantle” Palestinian communities in the West Bank by subjecting them to suffocating permit systems.
He warned that the measures are a prelude to forced displacement, describing the situation in the three villages as “a miniature scenario of what will soon happen across the West Bank.”
In a parallel development on Saturday, Israeli authorities issued new land confiscation orders in the Palestinian town of Anata, northeast of Jerusalem. The seized plots, dozens of dunams, will be used for parking lots and road expansion serving the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, which was built illegally on land belonging to al-Eizariya.
The move is part of the E1 Plan, a settlement project that aims to connect Ma’ale Adumim with other Israeli settlements around Jerusalem. Critics say it would sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and split the territory into two disconnected enclaves.
Palestinians and human rights groups warn that the plan would block essential infrastructure linking Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem while entrenching Israeli control over Jerusalem.
Peace Now, an Israeli anti-settlement group, has called the E1 project “deadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution,” warning it would only “guarantee many more years of bloodshed.”
More than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in 1967 and which Palestinians seek as part of a future state. The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements illegal under international law and a key obstacle to peace.
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, a position not recognized internationally.
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