US and Israeli authorities have closed a lease agreement this Wednesday for a plot of land intended to house the future permanent US Embassy in Jerusalem, a city recognized as the Israeli capital by the Trump Administration in late 2017.
The US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, have signed the "agreement for the allocation of land intended for the construction of the permanent compound" of the North American diplomatic representation.
The Embassy has described this understanding as a "significant step in the historic diplomatic process" initiated by Trump in his first term by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the legation there from Tel Aviv, in addition to "further proof that the relationship between the United States and Israel is at its best."
At the signing ceremony, held at the Israeli Foreign Ministry headquarters, Huckabee stressed that this step "deepens and expands our presence in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel," while Saar emphasized that "this agreement goes far beyond the cession of land."
"Trump's decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem was an act of historical justice. Today (...) that decision is further consolidated for generations to come," the Israeli minister stated.
The Center for the Rights of the Arab Minority in Israel, Adalah, has criticized in a statement that the pact is an "illegal" agreement, considering that the complex will be built on "confiscated Palestinian lands" under the "discriminatory" Absentee Property Law of 1950, seized from their rightful owners.
The organization recalled that in January 2023 it filed an appeal with the Israeli authorities to challenge, "on behalf of twelve descendants of the owners (...), including US and Jordanian citizens, along with Palestinian residents of Jerusalem," the allocation of that plot. However, the challenge was dismissed and, in April 2024, urban planning authorities ratified the project for the Embassy's location.
According to Adalah, "the construction of the Embassy complex violates the special international legal status of Jerusalem (...) established in UN General Assembly resolutions. The relocation of the Embassy and the recognition of the city as the capital of Israel constitute a flagrant endorsement of Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem and its grave violations of International Humanitarian Law".
In the same statement, Adalah maintains that the agreement sealed this Wednesday "deliberately enshrines a profound historical injustice" and accuses the United States of endorsing with this step "the illegal appropriation of land" with identified owners and Israel's "illegal mechanisms of dispossession and displacement, (...) in direct defiance of International Law and the prohibition of illegal annexation".