Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party have called for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.
They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to centre on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.
The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.
"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank)," they wrote.
The petition said the October 7, 2023, Hamas surprise blitz demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.
"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.
Israeli carnage
Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 during the Arab Israeli War.
The occupied West Bank has around 500,000 illegal settlers, and over 200,000 in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel has built over 100 illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank.
Most countries regard the illegal Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.
In besieged Gaza, Israel has killed over 56,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since October 7, 2023.
Some 11,000 Palestinians are feared buried under rubble of annihilated homes, according to Palestine's official WAFA news agency.
Experts, however, contend that the actual death toll significantly exceeds what the Gaza authorities have reported, estimating it could be around 200,000.
