العربية
HE
العربية
HE
Since the construction of the Separation Barrier in 2003, access restrictions on Palestinian farmers in the “Seam Zone” have steadily intensified. With the outbreak of the war in October 2023, these restrictions escalated dramatically: The military barred the vast majority of farming-permit holders, around 20,000 people, from accessing their lands. Nearly two years later, and despite the end of the war, most of these “emergency” measures remain in place.
On 23 May 2024, HaMoked petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice (HCJ) to lift these restrictions, or at least reduce them to a reasonable level. The petition is still pending. However, since then, instead of reducing or lifting the restrictions after the end of the war, the military has chosen to entrench them in its official procedures. On 15 September 2025, the Civil Administration published a new set of entry procedures for the "Seam Zone". These are laid out in a military document spanning dozens of pages, prescribing countless conditions and bureaucratic procedures governing Palestinians’ entry into the Seam Zone.
The most significant change in the document concerns the eligibility of farmland owners to enter the Seam Zone. The previous set of regulations, from 2022, emphasized that a West Bank resident must first and foremost have a “proprietary connection to agricultural land in the Seam Zone” in order to receive an entry permit. In other words, their ownership of the land itself conferred the right of access, rather than their use of the land for any particular purpose. By contrast, under the new procedure, an “agricultural need requiring entry into the "Seam Zone” becomes the central criterion, while the farmer's connection to the land becomes marginal and is barely mentioned.
This change has a historic implication for "Seam Zone" farmers, as it contradicts the original (purported) purpose of the Seam Zone permit regime, to ensure minimal harm to the fabric of life of local residents, as it existed prior to the construction of the Separation Barrier. This means that farmers’ right to access their lands should not depend on agricultural productivity but rather on their historical connection to it, which carries emotional and cultural value, as anchored in HCJ 6896/18 (Ta’meh)
On the practical level, the change creates a distinction between agricultural needs that justify year-round access to the Seam Zone and those that justify only seasonal access for a few days a year. This distinction has far-reaching consequences, since approximately 95% of farmers in the Seam Zone grow olive trees, which the military considers a crop requiring only seasonal care. As a result, most farmers are now effectively barred from their land for most of the year. In practice, over the past two years, even prior to the new procedures, these farmers were granted Seam Zone entry permits only during the olive harvest season, and even then subject to a slow and stringent military approval process.
In conclusion, during the war that began in October 2023, the military imposed unprecedented restrictions on approximately 20,000 Palestinian farmers in the Seam Zone, preventing the vast majority of them from accessing their land. Nearly two years later, and despite the end of the war, instead of lifting the restrictions presented as a temporary emergency measure, the military turned them into a permanent reality and anchored them in official regulations.
The new procedure fundamentally alters the principle governing eligibility for entry permits, from a right based on ownership and connection to land, to a right contingent on “agricultural need.” This change effectively nullifies the right of approximately 95% of farmers, olive growers, to access their land year-round, limiting them to seasonal entry during the harvest alone. Thus, what was justified as a temporary emergency measure has become a permanent and systematic restriction on the lives of thousands of farmers.
*On 18.01.2026, the HCJ rejected the petition, stating that the violation of the farmers’ rights was proportionate to the military commander’s obligation to maintain order and security in the "Seam Zone". The ruling did not specify which recent security developments justify the continuation of the restrictions.
