In the last few years, despite such prohibition, Israeli officials have announced their plans and intention to annex the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) in whole or part. In a recent statement, on 11 November 2024, Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich announced a plan to impose Israel’s sovereignty to and annex the occupied West Bank in 2025. He also confirmed that the groundwork is already being put into place (see here and here). His plans also include annexation of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime is conducting mass forcible transfer of Palestinians and building military bases (see here and here). The announcement of the US President to forcibly transfer Gaza’s population of over two million to Jordan and Egypt and take over the Strip, which was embraced by the Israeli far-right government (see here and here), emboldens Israel’s long-visioned plan to freely annex the occupied Palestinian territory. It has, in fact, encouraged further Israeli settlements expansion and land confiscation in the West Bank (see here and here).
This comes to no surprise as the Israeli government, led by Natanyahu, has long been in support of annexation and confiscation of Palestinian land in favour of illegal settlements (see here). At the factual level, Israel has been i) maintaining and expanding illegal settlements and outposts and their associated infrastructure, ii) expropriating Palestinian land and exploiting its natural resources, iii) proclaiming Jerusalem as its capital, iv) maintaining a restrictive and discriminatory planning and building regime for Palestinians, and v) applying extensive Israeli domestic law to East Jerusalem and extending Israeli law extraterritorially to Israeli settlers in the West Bank.