Three years after the Israeli Knesset ratified it, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to repeal the Settlement Bleaching Law, which aims to confiscate Palestinian land for the benefit of settlement in the West Bank.

Israeli newspapers reported that the court, which includes nine judges, considered the law illegal by a majority of eight, including Chief Justice Esther Huyout.

The Settlement Bleaching Law - which was approved by the Knesset in February 2017 - aims to settle the situation of about four thousand homes for Jewish settlers in 26 settlements, built on Palestinian land in the West Bank.

The court said that it had reached the conclusion that the violation of the “rights caused by law” is serious and clear, and that there is no escape from concluding that the harm caused as a result of the law outweighs its benefit.

For his part, the Likud party headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the court’s decision, and said in a statement that it is regrettable that the court intervened and repealed an important settlement law and its future, we will work to re-enact this law.

But Likud's new coalition partner, Blue and White, said the law "in its form contradicts the constitutional situation in Israel, and its legal problems were known at the time of its approval."

Rights groups say the measure, which was suspended shortly after it was passed while the court was hearing petitions against him, legalized more than 50 settlement sites built without government approval.

During Netanyahu's era, the government pledged to extend sovereignty over the Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, the territories Israel occupied in the 1967 war and that the Palestinians seek to establish a state on.

International law does not recognize the Israeli settlements established in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which were occupied by Israel in 1967 and subsequently annexed.