RAMALLAH, West Bank — The residents in east Ramallah have been waiting for the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice to issue a decision concerning the appeal submitted by the lawyer of the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din about a month ago. The appeal argues that the Israeli authorities’ confiscation of Palestinian lands based on the absentee property law is illegal. Fatima Ayyad, who owns 5 dunams (1.2 acres) near the Ofra settlement, east of the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank, is one of those residents.

Ayyad, along with other landowners, started litigations Sept. 22 in a bid to restore the lands and annul the confiscation decision. “This land was a piece of a large lot, which was the property of my grandfather before it was passed on to my father and my uncles. My father passed away and three uncles moved to Jordan. In the 1970s, they lost their [Palestinian] IDs because they had been out of the West Bank for a long time. We have been taking care of and cultivating the land ever since they left,” Ayyad told Al-Monitor.

She said that the Israeli authorities have gradually confiscated the land. Israeli soldiers would occasionally prevent Palestinians from accessing their lands, but in 2014, Israel imposed a complete ban on accessing the plots of land, preventing the owners from harvesting the olive trees and cultivating the land. On Aug. 8, a decision was issued to confiscate the land of the Ayyad family.

Under the pretext of the absentee property law, Israel has confiscated thousands of dunams in the West Bank and Jerusalem. As per the law, which was passed in 1950, the trustee for absentee property, an employee at the Israeli Ministry of Finance, is appointed to take possession and charge of the properties, which are lands and houses owned by Palestinians who fled them in 1948 or those who were displaced from the West Bank in 1967.