Two Arrested for Appropriating State Lands

Jerusalem, 11 August, 2025 (TPS-IL) — The Israel Police arrested two Ramla residents on suspicion of taking over state land and extorting contractors. The arrests came as police, as part of the fight against crime in Arab communities, assisted in the implementation of a judicial expropriation order to evacuate and demolish a complex that was illegally built on land, during a special operational activity to increase governance in the city and its surroundings.

According to the suspicion, the suspects invaded and took control of land belonging to the State of Israel, threatened contractors who had won a tender to work on the land, while attempting to extort them from paying them sums of money and/or employing them as subcontractors in a government tender, thereby effectively preventing the implementation of the tender estimated to be worth over 100 million Shekels ($ 29 million).