Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday at a ceremony for the new settlement of Doren in the Mount Hebron region that the Hebron Accords were canceled effective yesterday, ending Palestinian municipal planning authorities in the city. Smotrich called the accords 'one of the most absurd remnants of Oslo,' and said the move returns all planning authorities for the Jewish community and holy sites in Hebron to full Israeli control — authorities he said had previously been dependent on the 'Hebron terror municipality.'
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced Tuesday at a ceremony marking the new settlement of Doren in the Mount Hebron region that the Hebron Accords were canceled effective yesterday, ending Palestinian municipal planning authorities in the city. Smotrich called the accords 'one of the most absurd remnants of Oslo,' and said the move returns all planning authorities for the Jewish community and holy sites in Hebron to full Israeli control — authorities he said had previously been dependent on the 'Hebron terror municipality.' The announcement came at 12:03 Jerusalem, shortly before this bulletin was drafted, and was the third version of the story published by The Zioneer within minutes; earlier iterations reported the cancellation without the Doren settlement angle or the claim that Smotrich acted on a prior cabinet resolution.
As The Zioneer first reported at 12:03 Jerusalem, Smotrich stated that the revocation was approved by the Supreme Planning Council on Monday evening, and that all planning and construction authorities previously delegated to the Hebron municipality are now under full Israeli state control. A second, nearly simultaneous version of the report added that Smotrich said he was implementing a cabinet decision he initiated months ago — a claim that was absent from the initial version and was later incorporated into the minister's remarks at the Doren ceremony. The thread thus shows the story evolving from a ministerial announcement to a ceremony-linked policy roll-out, with the cabinet-resolution framing appearing only in the later iterations.
The Hebron Accords, signed in 1997 as part of the Oslo process, granted the Palestinian Authority limited municipal and planning powers in parts of Hebron. The cancellation, as Smotrich presented it, is a unilateral Israeli move that transfers those powers back to Israel's Civil Administration. The decision has not been independently verified by legal documentation or official publication in the Israeli law gazette, as The Zioneer noted in the initial dispatch.
It remains unclear whether the cancellation has taken legal effect or requires further administrative steps; Smotrich did not specify the exact legal mechanism. The cabinet resolution he cited as the basis for the move was not publicly identified by date or session, and no official statement from the Prime Minister's Office or the Defense Ministry — which oversees the Civil Administration — has been released.
6 developments
- DevelopingFar-right minister Smotrich holds ceremony on unauthorized outpost near Hebron
- DevelopingSmotrich backs Lebanon deal, in apparent shift
- DevelopingSmotrich repeats call to demolish buildings in Beirut's Dahiyeh today
- ConfirmedPM Netanyahu cancels Karnei Shomron event for second time, cites security developments
Source and signal
- Internal intake