by the necessities of war. A similar provision can be found in the Fourth Geneva Convention, where Article 53 forbids destruction of private property unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations. Despite these provisions, 738 dunums (738,000 km2) of land in Al Issawiya village and AtTur neighborhood were confiscated for the construction of a national park in 2011.97 Another third of annexed east Jerusalem was used to establish Israel’s illegal colonies despite IHL’s absolute prohibition,98 even under the military necessity pretext. As demonstrated in Chapter II, the implantation of settler population cannot be considered a military necessity since 1979.99 In 1981, the Mughrabi quarter continued to be the target of home demolitions, with a further 15 Palestinian buildings bulldozed and their residents displaced to different places around the world,100 demonstrating the clear aim of changing the geography and demography of the Old City in Jerusalem. 2. Hindrance of Land Registration and Absentee Property Law As within the West Bank, the system of land registration and denying building permits has been used by the Israeli authorities as a tool to prevent Palestinian owners from asserting their rights on their land. For a building permit to be authorized, the applicant must prove that his or her land has been registered in the Israeli Land Registar. Since 1967, the Israeli authorities froze land registration within the oPt. As a result, most of the land in east Jerusalem is not registered.101 The freeze on land registration continued until 2018, when the government adopted Resolution 3790 approving a five-year plan, allegedly aimed at “narrowing socioeconomic gaps and economic development in East Jerusalem.”102 In practice, 97 ADALAH, “Israel approves plan to build ‘National Park’ on lands of Palestinian villages in East Jerusalem”, 2013, Accessed 15 February 2022, Available at: https:// www.adalah.org/en/content/view/8231 98 The interdiction of settlements in Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention bears no exception. 99 Elon Moreh Case, 1979, HCJ Israel. 100 Nazmi Al-Jubeh, ‫ التاريــخ والمصيــر مــا بيــن التدميــر والتهويد‬:‫حــارة اليهــود وحــارة المغاربــة فــي القــدس القديمــة‬ [“The Jewish Quarter and the Moroccan Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem: History and Destiny between Destruction and Judaization”], 2019, 258-260. 101 BADIL, Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians, 109. 102 Amnesty International Report, Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians, 127. 25