'Israeli' Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Smotrich says he canceled Hebron Agreement, FM denies
Note: AI technology was used to generate this article’s audio.
'Israeli' Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared on Tuesday, that 'Israel' has "abolished" foundational components of the 1997 Hebron Agreement.
The unilateral move aims to strip the Palestinian municipal council of its decades-old planning, zoning, and construction authorities over the volatile H2 enclave of the West Bank city.
Speaking alongside Defense Minister Israel Katz at a cornerstone-laying ceremony for Doran, a newly approved settlement outpost in the southern Mount Hebron region.
Smotrich announced that the Higher Planning Committee of the Civil Administration -a department under his direct political portfolio- enacted the legal overhaul on Monday night.
The 1997 Hebron Protocol, originally signed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, partitioned the city into two distinct sectors.
While 'Israel' maintained security control over the H2 zone -which encompasses several hundred 'Israeli' settlers living alongside thousands of Palestinian residents- the accord strictly preserved the Palestinian municipality's civilian jurisdiction over administrative zoning, building permits, and infrastructure.
The far-right minister, who has made no secret of his long-standing strategy to dismantle the Oslo peace frameworks and thwart the realization of an independent Palestinian state, labeled the historical arrangement "absurd."
"Yesterday we put an end to that," Smotrich announced to the crowd. "For many years, one of the most absurd clauses of the Oslo accords remained in place, in which authority over the Jewish settlement in Hebron and the holy sites were dependent on the terrorist municipality of Hebron."
The declaration immediately triggered an internal diplomatic dispute within the 'Israeli' government.
Hours after Smotrich’s speech, the 'Israeli' Foreign Ministry issued a rare, public English-language denial on the social media platform X, explicitly contradicting the Finance Minister's sweeping claims.
Contrary to the Finance Minister’s statement, the Hebron Agreement has not been canceled.
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 16, 2026
Several months ago, the Security Cabinet adopted a decision that specifically concerns jurisdictions in the field of planning and construction with regard to the Jewish community in Hebron…
"Contrary to the Finance Minister’s statement, the Hebron Agreement has not been canceled," the Foreign Ministry statement read.
The ministry clarified that the security cabinet had merely passed a targeted measure several months ago transferring localized zoning rights over specific Jewish heritage locations and the immediate settlement neighborhood to 'Israeli' agencies, citing a "complete lack of cooperation" from the Palestinian Hebron Municipality.
"Beyond that, no changes have been made," the ministry added.
In Ramallah, the office of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fiercely condemned the development, warning that unilateral maneuvers targeting the legal status of Hebron directly violate international law and signed bilateral peace treaties.
The PA called on the international community, specifically appealing to the United States, to step in immediately to freeze the administrative restructuring.
The administrative takeover marks a critical victory for the ultranationalist settlement movement.
Local settler leaders have spent years lobbying to strip Palestinian entities of oversight regarding the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site profoundly revered in Judaism as the burial plot of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and by Muslims as the historic Ibrahimi Mosque.
