26 Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians are still applicable in the West Bank to the extent that they have not been annulled or amended by Israeli military orders or regulations. For this reason, we must focus on the relevant provisions enshrined in the Ottoman Land Code with respect to land categorization and ownership in order to approach the issue of land confiscations. The relevant amendments to these laws will also be noted to ascertain the pertinent and applicable legal provisions. There are many types of land ownership including private ownership, public land, waqf land and lands owned by authorities.89 The ownership of the land is dependent on the category of land to which it belongs. As such, the categories, and their attached ownership details are interconnected and will be dealt with simultaneously below. CATEGORIES OF LAND The Ottoman Land Code classified lands into five categories but conceives of land as falling into three main classes. The five categories are: waqf, mulk, miri, matrouk and mewat.90 The three classes refer to three classes of ownership: God, the State and the individual. The ownership of the waqf (generally but not unreservedly) rests with God, while the ultimate ownership, or raqaba, of miri, matrouk and mewat, rests with the State. The ownership of the mulk rests with the individual. While the raqaba entails ultimate possessory ownership, another land right exists in the form of usage rights known as tassaruf.91 Tassaruf allows an individual to use certain categories of land in specified ways while ultimate ownership rests with another body. Waqf Waqf is land ‘dedicated to a pious purpose’ and controlled by the Supreme Muslim Council.92 Its use is “applied for the benefit of human beings, and the subject of the dedication becomes inalienable and non-heritable in perpetuity”.93 As such, there existed a great incentive for individuals to convert their lands to waqf as it provided themselves and their descendants the strongest legal and religious sanctions against 89 90 91 92 93 Bakir Abu Abu Kishk, ‘Arab Land and Israeli Policy’, Journal of Palestine Studies 11, no. 1 (October 1981): 124. Shehadeh, ‘The Land Law of Palestine’, 86. Avraham Suchovolsky, Eliyahu Kohen, and Avi Erlikh, Land Law in Judea and Samaria (Israel, 1986), 23. Doreen Warriner, Land Reform and Development in the Middle East: A Study of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, 2d ed. (Westport, Conn, 1975), 67. Shehadeh, ‘The Land Law of Palestine’, 86..