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-- all defined state land;
-- land confiscated for public purposes;
-- land seized "pursuant to military requisition orders;"
-- land classified as "absentee property," belonging to Palestinians who fled in 1967 and didn't return; and
-- closed military zone areas.
The information gotten showed that "the portion of the built-up area of Ofra, or the area adjacent to it, that lies on requisitioned or confiscated land is very small, except for the land that the Civil Administration contends was confiscated by the Jordanians for the army camp."
By May 2008, Ofra's built-up area covered over 670 dunams (about 170 acres). About 27% of it was seized under Expropriation Order No 77/E (November 1977). Civil Administration information claimed it was "expropriated by the Jordanian government for a public purpose" and not initiated by Israel. Official documents, however, show that "the expropriation process was not completed." Also, Order 77/E wasn't recorded in the Land Registry, but the Civil Administration insisted that it's state land nonetheless even though registration was incomplete and thus invalid.
B'Tselem calls the land "not state land. (Therefore), Order 77/E, issued by the Israeli military commander in 1977, is a new expropriation order, issued more than two years after the settlers of Ofra took over the abandoned houses of the Jordanian army camp and some three months after the government of Israel decided to recognize Ofra as a permanent community."
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