The KAMAT, formally called the Archaeological Staff Officer of Judea and Samaria (Hebrew: קצין מטה ארכאולוגיה יהודה ושומרון), is an official agency within the Israeli Civil Administration, the body responsible for administrating archaeological affairs in Area C of the occupied West Bank. The agency is headed by Benjamin Har Even, with archaeologist Eyal Freiman serving as his deputy (2026). The work of the KAMAT has been characterized as nationalist, and drew significant international condemnation for their negative impact on Palestinian lives and property. It's authority has been recently extended in violation of the Oslo Accords, and has been viewed as violating international law by the United Nations, Palestinian state agencies, Israeli academics, international legal scholars and NGOs like B'Telem and Emek Shaveh.
History Established following the 1967 Six-Day War, a Staff Officer for Archaeology (SOA) was installed by the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums (IDAM). The SOA was initially under the authority of the newly established Israeli Military Governorate – the latter was succeeded by the Israeli Civil Administration.
The KAMAT expanded rapidly during the early 1980s, but its operations were subject to limited professional oversight. The department issued excavation permits to its own employees, and some of the sites excavated under its authority were almost completely exposed without adequate scientific publication.
Structure The unit is independent from the Israel Antiquities Authority (the successor to IDAM).
Its functions include supervising archaeological sites, issuing excavation and survey licences, approving civil and military infrastructure work affecting antiquities, conducting planned and salvage excavations, and combating antiquities theft, trafficking, destruction of sites and unauthorized construction within archaeological areas. The unit also undertakes archaeological surveys, including projects carried out in cooperation with academic institutions. The unit maintains archaeological collections and a scientific archive.
Finds recovered during excavations are restored, conserved and stored under its authority, and may subsequently be made available for scholarly research or loaned for exhibition. It is also involved in the conservation, development and public presentation of archaeological sites, as well as in the establishment of archaeological, historical and ethnographic museums.
Legal Basis The KAMAT acts as the statutory authority for antiquities in the territory, assuming the legal powers previously held by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities under the Jordanian Antiquities Law of 1966. Under this legal framework, the KAMAT may designate archaeological sites and define or revise their boundaries; halt construction or development within declared sites or areas suspected of containing antiquities; impose penalties for damage to archaeological remains, whether or not a site has been formally declared; order the demolition of structures located within archaeological areas; and gather evidence, conduct investigations, and seek the arrest of persons suspected of antiquities theft or illicit trafficking.
The unit is tasked with documenting, preserving, and managing over 2,600 historical sites, conducting salvage excavations ahead of modern development, and combating antiquity looting.
Under the internationally binding Oslo Accords, the KAMAT’s jurisdiction limited to Area C.
Scientific work Between 1980 and 1983, KAMAT excavated the site of Khirbet Susiya, uncovering the remains of a synagogue dated to the fourth–seventh centuries CE.
In 2002 the KAMAT established the Judea and Samaria Publications publication series for work carried out by the organisation.
In 2009, the KAMAT carried out salvage excavations at al-Tuwani, discovering an ancient church with mosaics among the village houses.
In 2011, the KAMAT excavated in the Palestinian village of al-Fasayil revealing a substantial Roman–Byzantine settlement with residential, palatial, or public buildings. The site also contained a large early Islamic bathhouse, a pool, and an extensive aqueduct system. A nearby hill contains a church and a mosaic-floored structure; Muslim burials within the church indicate that the area later served as a cemetery for an extended period.
In May 2025 KAMAT commenced a new excavation on private Palestinian private land in at Tel Rumeida in Hebron. According to Emek Shaveh, the excavation, an existing archaeological park, a newly established settlement, and the takeover of a Palestinian house collectively enlarged the area under Israeli settler control.
KAMAT also excavated at Khirbet er-Rabiya, Khirbet Lasayfer, Khirbet al-Rafid, Hizma, Khirbet Nabi ʿAner, and New Givon.
The names of archaeologists working in the West Bank were withheld because of a 2019 Israeli High Court ruling, which expressed concern that identifying archaeologists who excavated in the West Bank could expose them to academic boycott for violating international law and scholarly norms.
KAMAT and international law The KAMAT operates under significant geopolitical scrutiny, with international legal bodies, the State of Palestine, and non-governmental organizations debating the legality of its excavations and the ownership of discovered heritage artifacts under the laws of belligerent occupation.
The Second Protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention, adopted in 1999, prohibits non-salvage archaeological excavations in territories under military occupation/control. While Israel refused to sign the Protocol, many foreign states and international organizations regard Israel as subject to those norms in practice. Israel's carried of commissioned non-rescue excavations has contributed to the exclusion of KAMAT-affiliated archaeologists from some international journals, conferences, and professional frameworks, including policies associated with the Palestine Exploration Fund and ASOR.
Israel's government's decision to unilaterally extend KAMAT's enforcement role into Palestinian owned and government Area B, including powers to restrict construction and pursue demolitions at archaeological sites, has been widely decried by NGOS, human rights activists and legal scholars as direct violation of international law.
According to an HaAretz report, Minister Eliyahu works to establish the " Heritage Authority", a new Israeli civilian authority for archaeology in the West Bank. This authority would take powers away from the KAMAT and its authority would apply to anywhere in the West Bank. According to settler-affiliated news outlet, JNS News, the new authority would have very broad powers. It could take artifacts and land for "protection, conservation, research, and development," enter Palestinian municipalities, seize items, and stop construction. Overall, the stated aim, according to JNS, is is to "bypass Oslo-era restrictions" and place direct Israeli responsibility over historical sites in Judea and Samaria in violation of the Accords Oslo, where Area A is supposed to be under Palestinian civil and security control, while Area B is under Palestinian civil control with Israeli security control.
Critics of the law say it would be a step toward annexation because, for the first time, an Israeli civilian authority would have powers over Palestinian territory and Palestinian residents, outside Israel’s sovereign borders. The Knesset legal adviser is quoted as saying the bill raises significant legal problems in violation of international law, could be interpreted as annexation, and contradicts Israel's international obligations under the Oslo Accords. Prof. Amihai Mazar, a prominent Israeli archaeologist, expressed his opposition to the proposed the Heritage Authority because it would creatte "a sense of archaeological annexation of Area C" and could have "severe international implications." He specifically warns that if archaeology is seen as part of annexation, European collaborations with Israel would disappear.
Effects on Palestinians
In the 1980s, the KAMAT's work served as the legal basis and justification to expropriate Khirbet Susya, establishing a Jewish archaeological park, and the expulsion of the native residents from their homes. Residents who returned were repeatedly displaced, and their houses and residential caves were demolished on five occasions.
On 7 January 2021, the KAMAT raided Yusuf Muhammad ʿAmarna's home, inhabited by a family with five children.The troops confiscated two wooden doors, two iron windows, five water tanks, and an electrical transformer, and damaged furniture, on the pretense of protecting an archaeological site.
In 2022, the KAMAT issued demolition orders against five houses in At-Tuwani under alleged construction within an archaeological site. Reporter Ali Awad described this selective application of antiquities protection—under which Palestinian homes faced demolition while settlers entered the site under military escort—as an instrument of dispossession and forced displacement.
Rafi Greenberg, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, noted the KAMAT's use of archaeology to expel the Palestinian residents of Zanuta in the southern Hebron Hills. The archaeological sites in and around the village served as a pretext for eviction, while antiquities at the site were also vandalized by Israeli settlers.
In the Jordan Valley, the KAMAT's digging demarcation of antiquities sites were followed a systematic plan focusing on Israeli settlement outposts and Palestinian pastoral communities. According to archaeologist Rafi Greenberg, these sites became part of a wider territorial enclosure by introducing an additional Israeli institutional presence around Palestinian shepherds and small villages, thereby restricting their use of the surrounding landscape. The article does not identify the individual archaeological sites or affected communities by name.
In Wadi Qana, the KAMAT has faced criticism for citing frivolous archaeological claims to restrict Palestinian farmers from accessing and cultivating their lands in the area.
In December 2024, the Civil Administration’s archaeological authorities participated in issuing demolition notices to fifty Palestinian civilian families in Kafr Qalil and Nablus, on the grounds that their homes had been allegedly constructed within "archaeological sites." Archaeological personnel accompanied Israeli forces to deliver the orders of expulsion. Residents disputed the existence of archaeological remains beneath their homes and accused the KAMAT of using antiquities "protection" to take over Mount Gerizim near the Israeli settlement of Har Brakha.
In 2025, the KAMAT issued demolition order targeting the Massafer Yatta guesthouse, used by international NGOs and peace activists to protect Palestinian civilians and families against Israeli settler violence and expulsions.
In July and August 2025, the KAMAT declared 60 new "antiquities sites" in the northern West Bank, including thirty-one declarations for the Nablus area signed in May 2025 by Staff Officer Benny Har-Even and Civil Administration official Hillel Roth. Some sites are located within Palestinian controlled territory. The declarations allow KAMAT to demolish structures situated within designated zones. Emek Shaveh describes the scale of the declarations as unprecedented and argues that they form part of a wider process of land seizure and displacement of Palestinian.
On 17 March 2026, Israeli occupation authorities demolished the home of the Abayat family, the last remaining shepherding families at al-Fasayil in the Jordan Valley. Their permit application had been rejected because KAMAT claimed the dwelling as lying within an archaeological site. The wider community had already been displaced following sustained settler violence associated with an outpost established by Eliav Libi.