Area C (West Bank)

[20]: 133 [21]: 108 The Civil Administration is a part of a larger entity known as Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is a unit in the Defense Ministry of Israel.

As of 2013, Area C formally comprised about 63% of the West Bank, including settlements, outposts and declared "state land".

[22] Including or excluding East Jerusalem, no-man's land and the Palestinian part of the Dead Sea also determines the percentage.

[30] By contrast, the same Civil Administration figures indicate that in approximately 75% of Israeli settlements, construction was undertaken without regard for the appropriate permits.

[30] According to a UNOCHA report, "The planning and zoning regime applied by the Israeli authorities, including the ways in which public land is allocated, makes it virtually impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in most of Area C. Even basic residential and livelihood structures, such as a tent or a fence, require a building permit.

[19]: 3–5 According to the Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions: Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.Israeli demolitions are based on British mandate planning rules, which are evoked to justify demolitions, but at the same time Israel does not employ the Mandatory provisions for the granting of construction permits, according to B'tselem.

Firstly, it states that the demolitions satisfy Jordanian law, which was operative at the time Israel occupied the territories.

Israel has defined roughly 20% of the entire West Bank as "closed military areas" and 60% of the demolitions in 2010 took place in the latter.

[31] B'tselem claims that the refusal of the military-run Civil Administration to set down development plans for Palestinian villages are based variously on arguments that such sites are either situated near archaeological areas, that communities can relocate to nearby Palestinian land reserves, and that what it defines as "collections of illegal structures", though villages, were not planned.