GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The Jerusalem District Court ruled Aug. 28 that an Israeli settlement built on private Palestinian land owned by Palestinians from the West Bank is legal.

In 2013, the settlers in Mitzpe Kramim — built in 1999 near Ramallah — petitioned the court to acknowledge their right to the land after its Palestinian owners brought the case to the Supreme Court in 2011.

The district court based its ruling on the Knesset’s 2017 law allowing settlers to expropriate private Palestinian land on which they had built homes in "good faith.” This term means that the homes were constructed without the settlers knowing that the land was private property, with the consent of the Israeli authorities and in the absence of Palestinian legal objections. Under the law, Palestinians who prove ownership of the land at a future time will be eligible for material compensation or other land.

The Knesset enacted the law after Israeli police evicted settlers from the outpost of Amona, built in 1997 on privately owned Palestinian land northeast of Ramallah. The eviction followed the Supreme Court's ruling that the Palestinian owners' submitted documents proved that the land where the outpost was built was their private property.