JERUSALEM: When Donald Trump presented his 2020 plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it included the Israeli annexation of swathes of the occupied West Bank, a controversial aspiration that has been revived by his reelection.
In his previous stint as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu pushed for partial annexation of the West Bank, but he relented in 2020 under international pressure and following a deal to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates.
With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Israelis are hoping to rekindle the idea.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” referring to the biblical name that Israel uses for the West Bank.
The territory was part of the British colony of Mandatory Palestine, from which Israel was carved during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, with Jordanian forces taking control of the West Bank during the same conflict.
Israel conquered the territory from Amman in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has occupied it ever since.
Today, many Jews in Israel consider the West Bank part of their historical homeland and reject the idea of a Palestinian state in the territory, with hundreds of thousands having settled in the territory.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and its 200,000 Jewish residents, the West Bank is home to around 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
Israel Ganz, head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for the municipal councils of West Bank settlements, insisted the status quo could not continue.
“The State of Israel must make a decision,” he said.
Without sovereignty, he added, “no one is responsible for infrastructure, roads, water and electricity.”
“We will do everything in our power to apply Israeli sovereignty, at least over Area C,” he said, referring to territory under sole Israeli administration that covers 60 percent of the West Bank, including the vast majority of Israeli settlements.
Even before taking office, Trump and his incoming administration have made a number of moves that have raised the hopes of pro-annexation Israelis.
The president-elect nominated the pro-settlement Baptist minister Mike Huckabee to be his ambassador to Israel. His nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said this would be “the most pro-Israel administration in American history” and that it would lift US sanctions on settlers.
Eugene Kontorovich of the conservative think thank Misgav Institute pointed out that the Middle East was a very different place to what it was during Trump’s first term.
The war against Hamas in Gaza, Israel’s hammering of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of Syrian president Bashar Assad, all allies of Israel’s arch-foe Iran, have transformed the region.
“October 7 showed the entire world the danger of leaving these (Palestinian) territories’ status in limbo,” Kontorovich said, referring to Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel 15 months ago that sparked the Gaza war.
He said “the war has really turned a large part of the Israeli population away from a two-state solution.”
The two-state solution, which would create an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, has been the basis of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations going back decades.
Even before Trump won November’s US presidential election, NGOs were denouncing what they called a de facto annexation, pointing to a spike in land grabs and an overhaul of the bureaucratic and administrative structures Israel uses to manage the West Bank.
An outright, de jure annexation would be another matter, however.
Israel cannot expropriate private West Bank land at the moment, but “once annexed, Israeli law would allow it. That’s a major change,” said Aviv Tatarsky, from the Israeli anti-settlement organization Ir Amim.
He said that in the event that Israel annexes Area C, Palestinians there would likely not be granted residence permits and the accompanying rights.
The permits, which Palestinians in east Jerusalem received, allow people freedom of movement within Israel and the right to use Israeli courts. West Bank Palestinians can resort to the supreme court, but not lower ones.
Tatarsky said that for Palestinians across the West Bank, annexation would constitute “a nightmare scenario.”
Over 90 percent of them live in areas A and B, under full or partial control of the Palestinian Authority.
But, Tatarsky pointed out, “their daily needs and routine are indissociable from Area C,” the only contiguous portion of the West Bank, where most agricultural lands are and which breaks up areas A and B into hundreds of territorial islets.
Trump comeback restarts Israeli public debate on West Bank annexation
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Trump comeback restarts Israeli public debate on West Bank annexation
- With Trump returning to the White House, pro-annexation Israelis are hoping to rekindle the idea
- Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler in the Palestinian territory, said recently that 2025 would be “the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria“
Netanyahu says Israel and Hamas will enter ceasefire’s second phase soon
- Says the second phase addresses the disarming of Hamas and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza
- Second stage also includes the deployment of an international force to secure Gaza and forming a temporary Palestinian government
TEL AVIV, Israel: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel and Hamas are “very shortly expected to move into the second phase of the ceasefire,” after Hamas returns the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza.
Netanyahu spoke during a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and stressed that the second phase, which addresses the disarming of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, could begin as soon as the end of the month.
Hamas has yet to hand over the remains of Ran Gvili, a 24-year-old police officer who was killed in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. His body was taken to Gaza.
The ceasefire’s second stage also includes the deployment of an international force to secure Gaza and forming a temporary Palestinian government to run day-to-day affairs under the supervision of an international board led by US President Donald Trump.
A senior Hamas official on Sunday told The Associated Press the group is ready to discuss “freezing or storing or laying down” its weapons as part of the ceasefire in a possible approach to one of the most difficult issues ahead.
Netanyahu says second phase will be challenging
Netanyahu said few people believed the ceasefire’s first stage could be achieved, and the second phase is just as challenging.
“As I mentioned to the chancellor, there’s a third phase, and that is to deradicalize Gaza, something that also people believed was impossible. But it was done in Germany, it was done in Japan, it was done in the Gulf States. It can be done in Gaza, too, but of course Hamas has to be dismantled,” he said.
The return of Gvili’s remains — and Israel’s return of 15 bodies of Palestinians in exchange — would complete the first phase of Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan.
Hamas says it has not been able to reach all remains because they are buried under rubble left by Israel’s two-year offensive in Gaza. Israel has accused the militants of stalling and threatened to resume military operations or withhold humanitarian aid if all remains are not returned.
A group of families of hostages said in a statement that “we cannot advance to the next phase before Ran Gvili returns home.”
Meanwhile, Israeli military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Sunday called the so-called Yellow Line that divides the Israeli-controlled majority of Gaza from the rest of the territory a “new border.”
“We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip and we will remain on those defense lines,” Zamir said. “The Yellow Line is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”
Germany says support for Israel is unchanged
Merz said Germany, one of Israel’s closest allies, is assisting with the implementation of the second phase by sending officers and diplomats to a US-led civilian and military coordination center in southern Israel, and by sending humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The chancellor also said Germany still believes that a two-state-solution is the best possible option but that “the German federal government remains of the opinion that recognition of a Palestinian state can only come at the end of such a process, not at the beginning.”
The US-drafted plan for Gaza leaves the door open to Palestinian independence. Netanyahu has long asserted that creating a Palestinian state would reward Hamas and eventually lead to an even larger Hamas-run state on Israel’s borders.
Netanyahu also said that while he would like to visit Germany, he hasn’t planned a diplomatic trip because he is concerned about an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, the UN’s top war crimes court, last year in connection with the war in Gaza.
Merz said there are currently no plans for a visit but he may invite Netanyahu in the future. He added that he is not aware of future sanctions against Israel from the European Union nor any plans to renew German bans on military exports to Israel.
Germany had a temporary ban on exporting military equipment to Israel, which was lifted after the ceasefire began on Oct. 10.
Israel kills militant in Gaza
The Israeli military said it killed a militant who approached its troops across the Yellow Line.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says Israeli forces have killed more than 370 Palestinians since the start of the ceasefire, and that the bodies of six people killed in attacks had been brought to local hospitals over the past 24 hours.
In the original Hamas-led attack in 2023, the militants killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 others hostage. Almost all the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed at least 70,360 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says that nearly half the dead have been women and children. The ministry is part of Gaza’s Hamas government and its numbers are considered reliable by the UN and other international bodies.
