{"id":324287,"date":"2025-10-22T16:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324287\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T16:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:43:09","slug":"israels-parliament-advances-bill-to-annex-occupied-west-bank-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324287\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s parliament advances bill to annex occupied West Bank | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s parliament has voted to give preliminary approval to a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty on the occupied West Bank, in a move tantamount to annexation of the Palestinian territory, which would be a blatant violation of international law.<\/p>\n

Despite opposition from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party, lawmakers in the 120-seat Knesset voted 25-24 on Tuesday to advance the bill, in the first of four votes needed to pass it into law.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

A Knesset statement said the bill was approved in a preliminary reading \u201cto apply the sovereignty of the State of Israel to the territories of Judea and Samaria (West Bank)\u201d. It will now go to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee for further deliberations.<\/p>\n

The vote, which came a month after US President Donald Trump stated he would not allow Israel<\/a> to annex the occupied West Bank, was held during a visit by US Vice President JD Vance to Israel to shore up the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Likud called the votes \u201canother provocation by the opposition aimed at damaging our relations with the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue sovereignty will be achieved not through a showy law for the record, but through proper work on the ground,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Annexing the occupied West Bank would effectively end the possibility of implementing a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as outlined in UN resolutions.<\/p>\n

Likud member cast deciding vote<\/p>\n

Some members in Netanyahu\u2019s coalition \u2013 from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir\u2019s Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich\u2019s Religious Zionism faction \u2013 voted in favour of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people have spoken,\u201d Smotrich said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time has come to apply full sovereignty over all the territories of Judea and Samaria \u2013 the inheritance of our forefathers \u2013 and to promote peace agreements in exchange for peace with our neighbours, from a position of strength,\u201d he said, using Biblical terms for the West Bank.<\/p>\n

The bill was put forward by Avi Maoz, the leader of the far-right Noam Party, which does not belong to the governing coalition.<\/p>\n

Most Likud lawmakers abstained or failed to show up for the vote, but one member \u2013 Yuli Edelstein \u2013 defied Netanyahu and cast the decisive vote in favour of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this very moment, Israeli sovereignty throughout our homeland is the order of the day,\u201d he said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

A second bill by an opposition party proposing the annexation of the Maale Adumim settlement<\/a> was also passed.<\/p>\n

In August, Israel approved a major settlement project between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem in an area of the occupied West Bank that the international community has warned would destroy the viability of a future Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

\u2018Blatant violation of international law\u2019<\/p>\n

The votes drew swift condemnation from Jordan. In a statement, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said it \u201ccondemned in the strongest terms\u201d the Knesset\u2019s preliminary approval of the two draft laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is considered a blatant violation of international law, an undermining of the two-state solution, and an infringement on the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of their independent, sovereign state based on the June 4, 1967 borders, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital,\u201d said the statement on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ministry emphasized that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

All of Israel\u2019s settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.<\/p>\n

The United Nations principal court in 2024 said that Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal, and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Members of Netanyahu\u2019s coalition have been calling for years for Israel to formally annex parts of the occupied West Bank, and Netanyahu\u2019s government had been mulling annexation as a response to a string of its Western allies recognising a Palestinian state in September.<\/p>\n

But it had appeared to back off the plans after Trump made clear such a move would be unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u2018Rhetorical gesture\u2019<\/p>\n

Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg described the vote as part of the Knesset\u2019s \u201cmainly performative\u201d pushback to Netanyahu over the Gaza ceasefire deal, amid complaints it had been forced on Israel by the US and Middle East powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Knesset today passed the preliminary stage of a bill calling for \u2026 imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, which is technically supposed to resemble annexation. But that\u2019s a rhetorical gesture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates, which established ties with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office, last month warned that it considered the annexation of the West Bank a red line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s parliament has voted to give preliminary approval to a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty on the occupied…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":324288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,13191,3097,50,42440,4851],"class_list":{"0":"post-324287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-occupied-west-bank","13":"tag-palestine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115418825071144944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}