The Israeli military has quietly handed over significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants working for the far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich, the Guardian reported.

An order posted by the Israel military on its website on 29 May transfers responsibility for dozens of bylaws at the Civil Administration – the Israeli body governing in the West Bank – from the military to officials led by Smotrich at the defense ministry.

Smotrich and his allies have long seen control of the Civil Administration, or significant parts of it, as a means of extending Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. Their ultimate goal is direct control by the cabinet and its ministries. The transfer reduces the likelihood of legal checks on settlement expansion and development.

Israeli politicians have long sought to find ways to permanently seize, or annex, the occupied West Bank, which it captured in 1967 and where millions of Palestinians live.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer, said: “The bottom line is that [for] anyone who thought the question of annexation was foggy, this order should end any doubts. What this order does is transfer vast areas of administrative power from the military commander to Israeli civilians working for the government.”

It is the latest coup for Smotrich, who became finance minister and a minister in the defense ministry after a coalition agreement between his far-right political party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

The Civil Administration is principally responsible for planning and construction in Area C of the West Bank – the 60% of the Occupied Palestinian Territories under full Israeli administrative and security control – as well as enforcement against unauthorized construction, whether by Israeli settlers or by Palestinians.

The transfer of laws, which was largely unremarked upon in Israel, follows a years-long campaign by pro-settlement politicians to accrue many of the legal powers previously wielded by the military chain of command.

Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst for Israel-Palestine at Crisis Group, said: “The big story is that this is no longer ‘creeping annexation’ or ‘de facto annexation’, it is actual annexation.

“This is the legalization [and] normalization of a long-term policy. Smotrich is basically re-establishing the way in which the occupation works by taking a large part out of the hands of the military.”