Report: government recruited JNF to secretly buy Palestinian land for settlers

HAGAR SHEZAF: Haaretz reveals details of a series of deals carried out by Himanuta, a JNF subsidiary, in the West Bank, one of which involved the Defence Ministry

THE DEFENCE MINISTRY recruited the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael) to purchase hundreds of dunams of private, Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank for settlers who worked the land while its owners were denied access to it, according to documents examined by Haaretz.

In addition to that transaction, an investigative report by Haaretz reveals the details of other secret land purchases that were made by Himanuta, a JNF subsidiary, which concealed them from the JNF’s board of directors.

Documents seen by Haaretz reveal a series of such deals made by Himanuta in 2018-2019, including the purchase of properties for settlers who had squatted in them more than a decade earlier, various irregularities in the purchase procedures, and cases in which the reliability of documents involved in the acquisitions appears highly questionable. The details of these transactions had previously appeared only in internal reports.

One of the documents dealing with the land purchases, the Yahav Report, compiled by attorney Dina Yahav, is from January 2020. This detailed report was commissioned by the JNF after the controversial deals carried out by Himanuta in the West Bank became public knowledge, following publication by Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker.

Another document is a report drawn up by former deputy state prosecutor Yehoshua Lamberger. Whereas the Yahav Report examines the transactions themselves, the Lamberger Report, which was also first reported by Drucker, is about the way Himanuta Judea-Samaria entered into deals behind the board’s back.

FULL STORY Israel recruited the Jewish National Fund to secretly buy Palestinian land for settlers (Haaretz)

Illustration: Haaretz