From The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 17, 2025
Essay by Rory Jones
President Trump wants the U.S. to control the Gaza Strip, but it isn’t even clear who
owns it. Determining that might be among the most complicated territorial questions
on Earth.
The Palestinian enclave has an almost unique status, as well as a history of changing
hands, which makes figuring out who ultimately owns the tiny territory a matter of
unpacking overlapping land laws laid down over centuries.
Who controls it now?
Gaza is effectively run by Hamas militants, but the United Nations says it is
unlawfully occupied by Israel. Most countries consider the war-torn strip part of
Palestine, which itself isn’t recognized as a state by the U.S., among others. Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel doesn’t want to occupy Gaza at
the end of the war and he has praised Trump for what he said was creative thinking in
proposing to relocate Palestinians, something the U.N. has warned could contravene
international law.
Trump’s vision
Trump has offered few details about his plans beyond saying the U.S. would invoke
“United States authority” to control Gaza. He has said the U.S. wouldn’t buy Gaza or
use American troops to take it, but the U.S. should have longterm control to turn the
Philadelphia- size territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The nearly two million Palestinians living in Gaza would relocate to Jordan and Egypt
in Trump’s vision.
The plan has been denounced by Arab states, and European allies of the U.S. have said
they don’t support it. The Palestinian Authority, which ruled Gaza before Hamas, has
said Trump’s proposal represents a violation of international law. It has pledged that
Palestinians won’t relinquish their goal of a Palestinian state.
Hamas has vowed to fight Israel until the establishment of a Palestinian state that
includes the strip. Regular Gazans, most descended from Palestinians who were moved in 1948 from land that is now Israel, have pledged to stay.
Who owns the land?
Because Gaza has changed hands so often, the legal framework governing individual
ownership of the land is a knot of British, Egyptian and Palestinian laws. Some rules
date to when the area was under the control of the Ottoman Empire during the 400
years leading up to World War I.
Private individuals own as much as half of the land in Gaza, which can be freely
bought or sold, according to a 2015 study of land ownership in the enclave by the
Norwegian Refugee Council.
But more than one-third of that land is estimated to be unregistered because of difficulties, including establishing what is called a chain of ownership, and complex land laws and registration procedures, according to the study.
Unregistered private land can be registered by the owners only if they are able to prove
a historical chain of ownership. If not, owners are subject to restrictions: They can sell
the land but can’t mortgage it, for example. Unregistered land owners are considered
the owners unless proved otherwise, the study said.
Deeds of ownership have in the past been required to build in Gaza, where about one-
third of the territory is considered land for public use, though that is often occupied by
private individuals, the study said.
Before the recent war, plots of land in Gaza were registered with the Palestinian Land
Authority and taxed by the Property Tax Directorate in Gaza’s Finance Ministry.
Widespread ruin
Estimates vary, but the U.N. says about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either
destroyed or damaged, including more than 245,000 housing units. Entire city blocks
are flattened, and Palestinians say their neighborhoods are unrecognizable, making
working out who owns what and where even more challenging.
What the law says
The U.N. says international law generally prohibits the forced displacement of people
from land, but exceptions can be made for national-security or public-order reasons,
according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In those instances, the U.N.
says, the people affected should be given the opportunity to challenge the decision and
provide their consent.
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