Little-known Israeli mapping team is redrawing land boundaries as Palestinians face growing illegal settlement expansion.Al-Mughayyir, occupied West Bank – As the October olive harvest approaches, Bilal Abu Alia stands near his home, gazing at his family’s land – territory he says Israeli authorities have taken from his family in the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah.Of their original 0.4sq km (100 acres) of land, Bilal explains that his family can now only access a small area that includes their home and a few olive trees.Land confiscation in the occupied West Bank doesn’t always begin with a direct seizure. In many instances, the process starts with the redesignation and demarcation of land on official Israeli maps, with the Israeli Civil Administration’s “Blue Line Team” playing an important role.According to a report published in mid-September by the National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements, a body affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Blue Line team was officially established in 1999. Its primary role is to identify and formally designate areas that Israeli authorities classify as “state land”.Comprising surveyors, cartographers and legal experts, the team uses modern surveying technology and geographic information systems to review and redraw those boundaries on official maps, according to the bureau.The significance of the process is that land included within the boundaries Israel recognises as “state land” can subsequently be allocated for settlement projects, which are illegal under international law.Israel’s Civil Administration has argued that Blue Line revisions are technical corrections of historic surveying errors. But the United Nations has said that the revisions have essentially expanded the boundaries of land classified by Israel as state property.The bureau report argues that, in recent years, the Blue Line team has evolved from a technical mechanism for boundary demarcation into a tool increasingly used to accelerate settlement expansion and legitimise settlement outposts.The team recently re-demarcated areas in the northern and central West Bank totalling almost 0.2sq km (49 acres) that were reclassified from “state land” to land designated for settlement activity, according to the office. That included land that belonged to the Palestinian villages of Jalud, Qaryut, Turmusayya and al-Mughayyir.Al Jazeera has reached out to Israeli authorities for comment, but has yet to receive a response.In August 2025, an Israeli settler was shot while encroaching on Palestinian land in al-Mughayyir. Israeli forces subsequently launched a four-day operation in the village, during which bulldozers uprooted thousands of olive trees across much of the village, including the land later taken from Bilal’s family.“We were informed that we were barred from accessing this land, that it had become a military zone and then state land. We watched as the olive trees planted by my great-grandfather a century ago were bulldozed and uprooted right before our eyes, yet we were powerless to stop it,” Bilal told Al Jazeera.Israel informed the family that the land had become a closed military zone, off-limits to both Palestinians and settlers. However, shortly after, Bilal noticed a settler plowing the land. After the family lodged a complaint with the military liaison office, the settler stopped ploughing for a few days but soon resumed under the protection of the Israeli army.“Furthermore, in December 2025, months after the olive trees were uprooted, we attempted to gather the debris to at least salvage the wood,” he added. “We discovered that the land was under camera surveillance; my father, my elderly uncle and I were arrested and held for three days handcuffed, blindfolded and left lying on the cold ground at an army camp.”The land was once a source of livelihood for Bilal’s extended family, but the family says it can no longer farm it. Meanwhile, settlers continue to enter and use land in the area surrounding their home.The family attempted to file an objection against the confiscation of their land, but Bilal said he was only given three days to file an objection, leaving them no real opportunity to act, while bulldozers had already begun work on the site.The implications of the Blue Line team’s work go far beyond merely altering colours or boundaries on a map: A reclassification of land to state property can effectively open it up to construction projects or illegal settlement expansion.In the case of al-Mughayyir, this occurs within the context of broader settlement expansion that, according to the National Bureau, encircles the village and restricts residents’s ability to access and utilise their land.This mechanism suggests that land seizure often unfolds in stages: The land is first surveyed and boundaries redrawn before being designated ‘state land’ and then designated for settlement expansion.In the northern West Bank, the measures add to the continued expansion of Israeli settlements around Jenin. For example, the bureau points to military seizure orders affecting land around Qabatiya, near Jenin.
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