Supreme Court Rejects a No-Tender Land Request Near Poriya

The Supreme Court of Israel dismissed an appeal on September 27, 2026 from a man who wanted state land near Poriya without a public tender. Udi Ohel must pay the respondents NIS 15,000 in costs. The case is administrative appeal 5157/23.

The court said the ordinary path is to allocate state land by public tender. A tender, in plain words, is a public competition for the land. One exception, regulation 25(15) of the Tenders Obligation Regulations from 1993, can send land to a tourism project without a tender. A joint committee of the Tourism Ministry and the Israel Land Authority reviews those requests under a written procedure.

Ohel asked for 17,700 square meters on plot 630 in detailed plan G/19408, in the Emek HaYarden Regional Council. The judgment also places the land in block 15306, parcels 41 and 42. He wanted it for a tourism project called Mitzpe Poriya. A dunam is 1,000 square meters, so 17,700 square meters is 17.7 dunams. That conversion is ours, not a figure the court printed.

The missing form ended the Poriya appeal

The Nazareth District Court, sitting as an administrative court, had already dismissed his petition on May 9, 2023. Deputy President S. Atrash heard petition 37195-05-21. That court noted he had sent more than ten requests for land without a tender in one month, adding up to hundreds of dunams. It also found he never filed the procedure’s application form or the papers it requires, including proof of financial strength.

The Supreme Court hearing was on September 24, 2026. President Yitzhak Amit and Justices Ofer Grosskopf and Alex Stein gave the judgment on September 27. Ohel represented himself. The judges adopted the lower court’s result. They added that the Tourism Ministry may keep the conditions in an internal procedure, and that his claim the procedure was not accessible to the public had no basis. He pointed to a project program and two bank letters saying he and his mother could together fund 20 percent of the project. The court said that even if those papers met the first bar, which it doubted, he still never filled in the form.

The case number shows the petition was opened in May 2021. From then until the September 27, 2026 judgment is about five years and four months. That span is our count from the case number, not a sentence in the judgment.

If you are pitching a hotel, a lookout, or another tourism project on state land, start with the Tourism Ministry form and your financial proof, not with a letter alone. For how public land sales normally work, see our guide to Israel’s tender portal.

The picture at the top is Poria Illit in 2011, on the ridge south of the Sea of Galilee. The court case is about a different plot nearby. Photo: Hanay, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.