TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- Two Israeli ministers have openly pushed for the full annexation of the occupied West Bank, signaling a dangerous escalation as they claim the groundwork for the illegal move is already in place.
Yariv Levin and Israel Katz, so-called ministers for justice and military affairs, called for the deployment of the regime’s military across the occupied Palestinian territory to claim the biblical cities of “Judea and Samaria” – the term that the occupying Zionist entity uses when referring to the West Bank.
“Ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” their offices said in a joint statement on Thursday.
The ministers asserted that the groundwork for the annexation of the West Bank commenced during President Donald Trump’s first term (2017–2021), when his administration supported a proposal for Israel to assume control over most of the territory.
“This was expressed, among other things, in the work done by minister Levin during President Trump’s first term, in which all the necessary things were prepared for the important move – from a proposal for resolutions to precise maps, and minister Katz led a series of unprecedented decisions to strengthen settlement and pave the way for Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the statement added.
The statement came less than 10 days after the Israeli Knesset voted for a motion on annexation of the occupied West Bank.
In June, the Israeli regime unveiled a new plan for taking more land from the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The plan, led by far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich, includes the legalization of settler outposts and the forced displacement of the Bedouin communities.
Under the shadow of the genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has accelerated its annexation drive in the West Bank. The occupied West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967.
The Israeli military has intensified daily raids and mass arrests, notably in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, where Israeli bulldozers have razed entire residential areas, expelling at least 40,000 people.
Approximately 770,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, across 180 settlements and 256 outposts – including 138 classified as agricultural or pastoral, according to Palestinian reports.
Israeli data show illegal settlers staged 414 attacks against the Palestinians in the West Bank in the first half of 2025, up 30% from 2024. At least 1,009 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and settlers since October 2023.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds. All mere words.
Israel has already occupied vast pieces of Palestinian agricultural land to construct and expand new settler units in various areas of the West Bank.