Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

(MENAFN) Fourteen senior officials from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud faction have pressed him on Wednesday night to swiftly assert Israeli control over the occupied West Bank.

In a written appeal delivered to Netanyahu and made public by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on the platform X, the officials requested the administration “to apply sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (West Bank) before the end of the Knesset summer session,” which ends on July 27.

The letter emphasized that the existing “strategic partnership and backing and support of the US and President Donald Trump create a favorable time to lead this move (annexation) now.”

The ministers implied that current international conditions are especially suitable for proceeding with the annexation plan.

The message further cautioned that acknowledging certain settlement zones while permitting a Palestinian state to arise on the rest of the land constitutes an “existential threat to Israel.”

Among those who endorsed the letter were the ministers overseeing defense, economy, agriculture, energy, communications, transportation, justice, tourism, innovation, culture, diaspora affairs, education, social equality, regional cooperation, as well as Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.

The Palestinian Authority has consistently insisted that the West Bank remains a fundamental element of any prospective Palestinian state and has warned that any Israeli annexation of the occupied region would signal the demise of the two-state framework.

Israel has maintained control over the West Bank since the 1967 Middle East conflict.

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