Agency responsible for administering state-owned land, which comprised some 90 percent of pre-1967 Israel. In the prestate period, responsibility for purchasing and reclaiming areas of Palestine for Jewish settlement was held by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). After independence, many of these functions passed naturally to state institutions, including the Israel Lands Authority, with the efforts of the JNF directed to the reclamation of uncultivable land. Though initially part of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Lands Authority was placed under the jurisdiction of the new Ministry of National Infrastructure established in 1996 by the Benjamin Netanyahu government.
Historical Dictionary of Israel. Bernard Reich David H. Goldberg. Edited by Jon Woronoff..