US President Donald Trump on Thursday brushed off concerns that Israel might try to annex the occupied West Bank after the Israeli parliament backed a bill proposing the takeover.
“Don’t worry about the West Bank,” he told reporters at the White House. “Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank … Israel is doing very well, they’re not going to do anything with it.”
Middle East countries were taking a renewed stand against Israel on Thursday after the Knesset vote and four people were killed in a bombing in Lebanon.
More than a dozen Islamic nations, including the UAE, condemned “in the strongest terms” the approval of two draft laws by the Knesset that would apply Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. Top US officials visiting Israel also warned against an annexation.
Under American pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – whose cabinet includes hardline Israeli nationalists – distanced himself from the bills proposed by the opposition. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the government was not backing the bills at “this stage”.
The group of mainly Islamic countries, including the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, said the West Bank votes in Israel's parliament were a “blatant violation” of international treaties and UN resolutions. They said Israel has no sovereignty over occupied Palestinian land.
They welcomed Wednesday's advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice saying that Israel is obliged to meet the basic needs of people in Gaza. Judges added that Israel must support relief efforts by the UN, including the Palestinian refugee aid agency UNRWA.
US Vice President JD Vance, the most senior of the Americans visiting Israel this week, said Mr Trump would oppose an annexation of the West Bank. Asked about the vote, Mr Vance said: “If it was a political stunt, it is a very stupid one, and I personally take some insult to it.”
In Lebanon, two people were killed in an Israeli bombing attack on the Bekaa Valley, in which schools were damaged and pupils injured. Israel said it had struck a Hezbollah training compound and a missile plant.
Lebanon's leaders held talks with the senior US general stationed in the country, Joseph Clearfield. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam called for pressure on Israel to stop its regular attacks. Education Minister Rima Karami called the strikes a “barbaric assault” after they caused panic among schoolchildren.
The flare-ups were the latest sign of unresolved tension in the Middle East since Mr Trump's Gaza ceasefire deal took effect this month. Israeli settlers have been accused of violent attacks on Palestinians harvesting olives in the West Bank, while air strikes killed 44 people in Gaza at the weekend.
Mr Netanyahu also distanced himself from Wednesday's vote, saying it was intended “to sow discord” during Mr Vance's visit to Israel. “The two bills were sponsored by opposition members of the Knesset,” Mr Netanyahu's office said.
It said Mr Netanyahu's Likud party and coalition partners “did not vote for these bills”, except for one disgruntled Likud member who was recently fired from the chairmanship of a Knesset committee. “Without Likud support these bills are unlikely to go anywhere.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was arriving in Israel tonight, warned an annexation of the West Bank would threaten the Gaza peace deal. One of the Knesset bills would apply Israeli law to the area, a move tantamount to a grab of land that Palestinians see as part of their future state.
The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law. “The President has made clear that it is not something we can be supportive of right now,” Mr Rubio said as he boarded a plane to Israel.
Annexation moves are “threatening for the peace deal”, he added. “They're a democracy, they're going to have their votes and people are going to take these positions,” he said.
“But at this time, it's something that we … think might be counterproductive.”
Asked about increased violence by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, Mr Rubio said: “We're concerned about anything that threatens to destabilise what we've worked on.”
The US is the primary military and diplomatic supporter of Israel, and Mr Rubio, until recently, had steered clear of criticising annexation moves championed by Israel's far right.
Several Arab and Islamic states, which the US is courting to provide troops and money for a stabilisation force in Gaza, have warned that annexation of the West Bank would be a red line.
Some members of Mr Netanyahu's coalition have been calling for years for Israel to formally annex parts of the West Bank, territory to which the country claims biblical and historical ties.
The UN and most of the international community regard the territory as occupied. Israel argues that this cannot be the case in legal terms because it is on disputed lands.
The UN's highest court in 2024 said that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.
Mr Netanyahu's government had been considering annexation as a response to a string of its western allies recognising a Palestinian state in September, but appeared to scrap the move after Mr Trump's objection.
Reacting to Wednesday's vote, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israel has no sovereignty over the West Bank or Gaza.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that the occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, is a single geographical unit over which Israel has no sovereignty,” it said.
The Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule in some areas of the West Bank.
Hamas said the Israeli votes reflected “the ugly face of the colonial occupation”.
“We affirm that the occupation's frantic attempts to annex West Bank lands are invalid and illegitimate,” it said.
Mr Netanyahu has not been explicit about annexation since a past election pledge was scrapped in 2020 in favour of normalising ties with the UAE and Bahrain through the Abraham Accords.
The UAE, the most prominent Arab country to establish ties with Israel under the accords brokered by Mr Trump, has warned that annexation of the West Bank is a red line.
