Israel plans to annex 82 percent of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday.
“Israeli sovereignty will be applied to 82 percent of the territory,” Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told a press conference in Jerusalem.
“It is time to apply Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and remove once and for all the idea of dividing our small land,” he said.
The extremist minister said the Palestinians’ affairs will be run by the Palestinian Authority, which will later be replaced with what he called “regional civilian management alternatives.”
Smotrich said the main principle of the annexation is “the maximum land with minimum Arab population.”
“There will never, and can never be, a Palestinian state in our land,” he claimed. “If the Palestinian Authority dares to rise up and try to harm us, we will destroy them just as we do to Hamas.”
Smotrich called the occupied West Bank annexation “a preventative step” against moves by many countries to recognise Palestinian statehood.
Several countries, including Belgium, France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, announced plans to recognise Palestinian statehood during the upcoming meetings of the UN General Assembly on September 8-23, joining 147 nations that already do.
Smotrich called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to make a historic decision to apply Israeli sovereignty to all open areas in Judea and Samaria (occupied West Bank).”
On August 20, Israel approved a major settlement project, called E1, which aims to split the occupied West Bank into two parts, cutting off the northern cities of Ramallah and Nablus from Bethlehem and Hebron in the south and isolating occupied East Jerusalem.
The international community, including the UN, considers the Israeli settlements illegal under international law.
The UN has repeatedly warned that continued settlement expansion threatens the viability of a two-state solution, a framework seen as key to resolving the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
In an advisory opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
