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bezalel smotrich
Netanyahu Says 'There Will Be No Palestinian State,' Signing E1 Settlement Agreement
The plan threatens 7,000 Palestinians with forced displacement and would cut East Jerusalem off from the rest of the West Bank.
Sep 12, 2025
With a growing number of countries around the world recognizing Palestinian statehood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday declared that "there will be no Palestinian state" as he signed an agreement to develop a key settlement in the West Bank—prompting calls for the international community to hold Israel accountable for its illegal occupation and apartheid policies in Palestinian territories.
At an event in the settlement of Maale Adumim, Netanyahu was joined by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Construction and Housing Minister Haim Katz as he signed an agreement with the town to develop 3,400 new housing units in the E1 settlement, which has long been stalled due to US opposition.
The Trump administration has reversed that opposition, clearing the way for Israel to link thousands of illegal settlements together and cut off East Jerusalem—which Palestinians have named as the future capital of a Palestinian state—from the rest of the West Bank.
Netanyahu said Thursday that the plan will "double the population" of Israelis in Maale Adumim, which like all of Israel's settlements in the West Bank is illegal under international law. Last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is illegal and said it was guilty of confiscating "large areas" of Palestinian land for Israeli settlers.
“We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us," said Netanyahu.
As +972 Magazine reported Friday, 7,000 Palestinians in the West Bank face forced displacement if the plan moves forward, and north-south travel could become "almost impossible," as the proposed settlement would establish separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis and would divert Palestinian drivers from Route 1 onto a bypass.
The town of Ezariyah, where many current residents travel frequently for shopping and other daily needs, "would become a geographically isolated island," Mohammad Mattar, a member of the town's municipality, told +972. "The road will cut right against people’s homes, leaving no room for natural expansion, and the town will lose thousands of dunams of land. This will force many residents to leave and deal a devastating economic blow.”
Mattar said that 112 demolition orders have already been issued for homes, shops, factories, and farmland.
"Some businesses have already evacuated and cut their losses, while others are waiting," he said. "It will force many residents to leave, particularly Jerusalemites who have built their lives and livelihoods around the town."
On Thursday, the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now reported that it had prepared billboards denouncing the E1 plan to display in Maale Adumim during Netanyahu's event, but Mayor Guy Yifrah blocked them from being displayed.
In addition to "burying" the possibility of a Palestinian state, as Smotrich said last month, "the annexation led by Smotrich and Netanyahu will bury Israel," Peace Now said.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, presidential spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera that a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is "inevitable" regardless of Netanyahu's agreement to the E1 plan.
Rudeineh noted that 149 United Nations member states have recognized Palestinian statehood, with the number jumping in recent months as countries including France and Ireland have announced their recognition, and called on other countries to do the same to increase pressure on Netanyahu to back off the E1 plan.
"As more governments recognize a Palestinian state, it makes it harder for Netanyahu to proceed with his preferred options—mass expulsion (no Palestinians for a state) or endless apartheid (oppressive occupation with no state)," said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, last week.
Inès Abdel Razek, executive director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, told +972 that with Israel starving the people of Gaza with its blockade on humanitarian aid and slaughtering more than 64,000 Palestinians there so far since beginning its bombardment of the exclave nearly two years ago while also stepping up violence in the West Bank, the recognition of a Palestinian state by individual countries is "increasingly irrelevant."
"The most we can say about the fact that governments choose recognition as a measure right now, in the midst of a genocide that needs to end, is that it is really too little, too late," she told +972. "What governments should be doing, not only as a moral obligation, but as a political and legal obligation under international law, is to end the genocide and the occupation, and to hold Israel accountable."
"For the PA, recognition is a victory," said Abdel Razek. "But if you look on the ground, there is little resembling a Palestinian state... What does exist are Palestinians themselves, fighting to remain on their land and to see their fundamental right to self-determination fulfilled."
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Smotrich Proposes Annexing Gaza and Carrying Out Trump Ethnic Cleansing Plan
The far-right Israeli finance minister's remarks follow comments last week in which he said: "Whoever doesn't evacuate, don't let them. No water, no electricity; they can die of hunger or surrender."
Aug 28, 2025
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday proposed the systematic annexation of Gaza over the coming months if Hamas keeps fighting, as well as the implementation of US President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian enclave.
Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, announced his plan to "win in Gaza by the end of the year" during a press conference in Jerusalem.
Israel "must completely hold control of the entire strip, forever," he said.
The minister explained that "an ultimatum will be presented to Hamas between two options," surrendering, disarming, and returning all hostages kidnapped during the October 7, 2023 attack, or "gradual annexation of areas of the Gaza Strip and reduction of the enemy's territory, and implementation of the Trump plan for voluntary emigration of the strip's residents."
"Voluntary emigration" is widely viewed as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given most Palestinians' unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their homeland. Most Gazans are descendants of survivors of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel in 1948. Some are actual Nakba survivors.
Smotrich also called for a tightening of the siege on Gaza—which has caused the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—in order to "starve and dehydrate Hamas fighters to death."
The minister's remarks followed comments last week in which he said that "whoever doesn't evacuate, don't let them. No water, no electricity; they can die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want."
Earlier this year, Smotrich said: "We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed. On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
Last month, the Israeli Knesset hosted an annexation conference at which Smotrich declared that "we will occupy Gaza and make it an inseparable part of Israel."
Smotrich's annexation plan comes as the Israel Defense Forces carries out Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer and occupy Gaza and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians. Trump said earlier this year that he wants to transform Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
Some critics, including the Israeli jurist Itay Epshtain, said Smotrich's comments will surely be noticed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—which is currently weighing a genocide case against Israel—and International Criminal Court (ICC), which last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.
The ICC has also reportedly prepared arrest warrants for Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the crime of apartheid related to their Trump-backed plans to expand illegal settler colonies in the West Bank and annex the occupied territory.
Last year, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end as soon as possible.
Over the past 693 days, Israeli forces have killed at least 63,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. However, experts say the actual death toll is likely much higher. More than 158,600 Palestinians have been wounded, and thousands more are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. A growing famine engineered by Israel has claimed at least hundreds of lives and is threatening hundreds of thousands more.
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'All Eyes On Gaza City' as Israel Ramps Up Campaign of Conquest and Ethnic Cleansing
"The explicit goal of turning Palestine's largest city into a wasteland has nothing to do with hostages or Hamas and everything to do with genocide," said one critic.
Aug 21, 2025
Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—Israel's plan to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gaza—intensified Thursday, with fugitive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israeli forces will take over all of the embattled strip even if Hamas agrees to a ceasefire and one of his far-right ministers vowing to continue the genocidal war even "at the expense of the hostages' lives."
"We have begun the preliminary actions and the initial stages of the offensive on Gaza City, and already now [Israeli] forces are holding positions on the outskirts of Gaza City," Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Effie Defrin told reporters. "We will intensify the strikes on Hamas in Gaza City, the political and military stronghold of the terror organization."
Defrin added that the IDF is warning residents to evacuate in a bid to "minimize harm to civilians." However, critics say "evacuate" is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, the stated goal of Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said earlier this month: "We conquer, cleanse, and stay until Hamas is destroyed. On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains."
Arutz Sheva reported that Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—which ultimately aims to force much of Gaza's population into a concentration camp in order to make way for possible Jewish recolonization of the strip—will involve five IDF divisions, two of them reserves. The news site said that the IDF will issue new emergency draft orders to 60,000 reservists, who will augment the 70,000 who are already activated.
IDF Col. (Res.) Marco Moreno said Thursday that the only way to achieve security is via the "voluntary migration" of everyone in Gaza—another euphemism for ethnic cleansing, given Palestinians' unwillingness to voluntarily abandon their homeland.
"Even if Hamas disarms, raises a white flag, and disappears, it won't be long before a new organization rises in Gaza with the same agenda to destroy the state of Israel," Moreno said during a TV interview. "The only way to ensure true security is through the voluntary migration of all Gaza residents."
Israeli Settlement Minister Orit Strook, a member of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told the radio station Kol BaRama Wednesday that she favors continuing the war "even if it is clear that Hamas will execute the hostages," 20 of whom remain imprisoned since the October 7, 2023 attack.
"Of course, it is not only me who will vote to continue the war at the expense of the hostages' lives," added Strook, who is known for her extreme support for illegal Israeli settler colonization of Palestine and for allegedly filming her and her husband's sexual abuse of their daughter for pornographic videos.
Hamas condemned the Israeli operation in a statement accusing the Netanyahu government of "continuing its brutal war against innocent civilians, escalating its criminal operations in Gaza City with the aim of destroying it, and displacing its residents in a full-fledged war crime."
The United Nations human rights office said Wednesday that "Israel's reported decision to take full control of Gaza City and to forcibly displace its population will lead to mass killings of civilians and destruction of infrastructure vital to the survival of the population."
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said President Donald Trump—who has said he wants to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform the strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East"—is "fully supportive" of Israel's campaign.
Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces Thursday, including nine aid-seekers and five family members massacred in a drone strike in Khan Younis. Two massacres in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood killed four and eight people respectively, while four people were killed in a separate strike on a family home in the al-Shanti area.
Two more Palestinians also reportedly starved to death in Gaza, where at least 271 people including 112 children have died from malnutrition driven by Israel's "complete siege."
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 62,122 Palestinians—most of them women and children—and wounded more than 156,700 others, with thousands more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Expert analyses including multiple peer-reviewed studies have concluded the official Gaza Health Ministry death toll is likely a vast undercount.
As Common Dreams reported Thursday, a joint investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that, contrary to Israeli claims of a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, a staggering 5 out of 6 Palestinians killed in the strip between October 2023 and May were noncombatants.
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