Israel’s 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.
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.
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A Knesset statement said the bill was approved in a preliminary reading “to apply the sovereignty of the State of Israel to the territories of Judea and Samaria (West Bank)”. It will now go to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee for further deliberations.
The vote, which came a month after US President Donald Trump stated he would not allow Israel 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.
In a statement, Likud called the votes “another provocation by the opposition aimed at damaging our relations with the United States”.
“True sovereignty will be achieved not through a showy law for the record, but through proper work on the ground,” the statement said.
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.
Likud member cast deciding vote
Some members in Netanyahu’s coalition – from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism faction – voted in favour of the bill.
“The people have spoken,” Smotrich said in a post on X.
“The time has come to apply full sovereignty over all the territories of Judea and Samaria – the inheritance of our forefathers – and to promote peace agreements in exchange for peace with our neighbours, from a position of strength,” he said, using Biblical terms for the West Bank.
The bill was put forward by Avi Maoz, the leader of the far-right Noam Party, which does not belong to the governing coalition.
Most Likud lawmakers abstained or failed to show up for the vote, but one member – Yuli Edelstein – defied Netanyahu and cast the decisive vote in favour of the bill.
“At this very moment, Israeli sovereignty throughout our homeland is the order of the day,” he said in a post on X.
A second bill by an opposition party proposing the annexation of the Maale Adumim settlement was also passed.
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.
‘Blatant violation of international law’
The votes drew swift condemnation from Hamas and Jordan.
The Palestinian group said in a statement that the bills reflected “the ugly face of the colonial occupation”.
“We affirm that the occupation’s frantic attempts to annex West Bank lands are invalid and illegitimate,” the group said.
Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said it “condemned in the strongest terms” the Knesset’s preliminary approval of the two draft laws.
“This 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,” said the statement on X.
“The Ministry emphasized that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories.”
More than 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
All of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.
The United Nations principal court in 2024 said that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal, and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.
Members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been calling for years for Israel to formally annex parts of the occupied West Bank, and Netanyahu’s government had been mulling annexation as a response to a string of its Western allies recognising a Palestinian state in September.
But it had appeared to back off the plans after Trump made clear such a move would be unacceptable.
‘Rhetorical gesture’
Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg described the vote as part of the Knesset’s “mainly performative” pushback to Netanyahu over the Gaza ceasefire deal, amid complaints it had been forced on Israel by the US and Middle East powers.
“The Knesset today passed the preliminary stage of a bill calling for … imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, which is technically supposed to resemble annexation. But that’s a rhetorical gesture,” he said.
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.
