Lawyers representing Palestinian local councils in the West Bank filed a Supreme Court petition against Israel's new settlement legalization law on Wednesday, a legal rights group said.
"This sweeping and dangerous law permits the expropriation of vast tracts of private Palestinian land" and violates Palestinian property rights, said Suhad Bishara, a lawyer with the rights group Adalah.
The law, passed by the Knesset on Monday, stipulates that Israeli settlements found to be illegally built on Palestinian-owned land will not be removed. Instead, the legal owners of the land will receive alternative land or financial compensation.
However, analysts say the law is unlikely to be upheld by Israel's Supreme Court because it violates basic rights and is discriminatory.
The law was fiercely criticized in Israel and abroad, with the United Nations, Turkey, France, Germany and Britain issuing condemnations.
"The confidence we had in the Israeli government's commitment to the two-state solution has been profoundly shaken," said the German Foreign Ministry in a statement released late Tuesday.
The White House, however, only said that the law would be a topic of discussion during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned trip next week to Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the law and Israel's recent approval to construct thousands of housing units for settlers during a speech on Wednesday to the French Senate in Paris.
During a meeting with French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday, Abbas described the law as "an aggression against our people."
