Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit approved the use of a special 1967 order to legalize settlement buildings on private Palestinian land, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday.

During a meeting attended by several Israeli judicial officials, Mandelblit said the “Order Concerning Government Property,” which was issued in July 1967, could be invoked to expropriate Palestinian land.

Clause 5 of the order states that “any transaction concluded in good faith between the authorities and another person … will not be struck down and is valid, even if it is proven that the asset was not government property at the time of its purchase.”

Mandelblit’s office said in a document that the clause had rarely been used in almost five decades, but “the need to make use of it has arisen now.”

Back in February, the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, passed a law on the expropriation of privately-owned Palestinian land in the West Bank, where Israeli settlements or outposts have been constructed.

However, Palestinians filed petitions to the Israeli High Court against the law.