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bezalel smotrich
Israel's Smotrich Responds to ICC Arrest Warrant by Announcing More War Crimes
The far-right finance minister announced that he'd respond to an arrest warrant request for his forced expulsion of Palestinians by ordering the evacuation of another West Bank village.
May 19, 2026
Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Tuesday that the International Criminal Court prosecutor had requested an arrest warrant against him, reportedly in response to his illegal forced expulsion of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank.
He said he planned to "fight back" by issuing an order to forcibly evict hundreds more Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank.
During a news conference, Smotrich said he'd been informed Monday evening that the ICC prosecutor had secretly requested a warrant for his arrest in April. A formal warrant has not been announced by the court, and the official charges have not yet been publicized.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the prosecutor had been considering seeking an arrest warrant against Smotrich for his role in expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in July 2024 was a violation of the Geneva Conventions because it entailed the forced removal of residents in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The ICC prosecutor was also preparing to issue an arrest warrant against fellow far-right settler politician, Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, though there is not yet any reporting to suggest that this warrant has been issued.
Already, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
In response to the reported warrant request for what the ICC considers a war crime, Smotrich celebrated the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank. He boasted of creating “over 100 new settlements” in the occupied territory and “160 farming outposts,” which he said helped Israel to control 247,000 acres of land in the territory.
The United Nations reported in March that over the previous year, more than 36,000 Palestinians in the West Bank had been forcibly displaced by settlement expansion and by violence committed by Israeli settlers.
Smotrich said the court's issuing of arrest warrants against him and other Israeli leaders was a "declaration of war" and said that "we will respond with war."
"From today, every economic or other target within my authority to strike—whether as Finance Minister or as a minister in the Defense Ministry—will be attacked. Not with words or gimmicks, but with actions," he said.
"I announce here and now the first target that will be attacked: immediately after my remarks, we will sign an order for the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar," he added.
He was referring to a Palestinian Bedouin village of about 200 people on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, which has fought a yearslong legal battle against the Israeli government following orders by Ben-Gvir for it to be demolished to make room for a settlement.
The territory is especially significant because it would link two major settlements in East Jerusalem with the Jordan Valley as part of Israel's ongoing E1 settlement project, which is aimed at constructing settlements so that they cut the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank in two.
Smotrich, who has led the E1 project, declared last year that the proposal “buries the idea of a Palestinian state because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize."
On Tuesday, Smotrich said his order for Palestinians to leave Khan al-Ahmar would be "only the beginning" of his response to the reported warrant request.
Jasper Nathaniel, an American journalist who reports from the West Bank, explained that "Smotrich just announced the official ethnic cleansing of a Palestinian village in response to the ICC warrant for his arrest."
Observers pointed out the brazenness of Smotrich's declaration in the face of an international tribunal.
Adil Haque, a professor of law at Rutgers University and the executive editor of Just Security, noted the remarkable irony: "The ICC office of the prosecutor reportedly requested an arrest warrant for his war crimes, so he announces a new one."
Along with Ben-Gvir, Smotrich was sanctioned last year by five countries—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom—which subjected them to travel bans and asset freezes.
Ori Goldberg, an Israeli expert on Middle Eastern studies, said international punishments against Smotrich needed to be even stronger after he announced "as stark a violation of international law as possible."
"Make the warrants public. Sanction this man and everybody else who foots the bill. EU Leadership—stop making fools of yourselves as the world is torn asunder," he said. "Show Israelis... the jig is up."
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House Progressives Press Trump as Israel's Illegal West Bank Annexation Accelerates
"Trump said he's against it but does nothing as Netanyahu destroys the prospect of a two-state solution."
Feb 19, 2026
Progressive US lawmakers on Thursday joined more than 80 countries in condemning Israel's de facto annexation of the West Bank, while urging President Donald Trump to exert pressure on the key Mideast ally to stop stealing Palestinian land and recommit to the moribund so-called two-state solution.
"The Israeli government is moving toward illegally annexing the West Bank," the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) said on X. "Trump said he's against it but does nothing as Netanyahu destroys the prospect of a two-state solution. We need real US pressure to deliver a just and peaceful outcome for both Palestinians and Israelis."
CPC was responding to a Wednesday Washington Post article examining how "Israel has moved aggressively in recent days to deepen its control over the occupied West Bank, unilaterally adopting policies that analysts say represent a major shift toward annexation."
Earlier this week, the Cabinet of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved measures making it easier for Jewish settlers to purchase land stolen from Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by resuming land registration procedures in Area C, the approximately 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli military and civil control.
Responding to the move, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Tuesday that "accelerating the dispossession of Palestinians and expanding Israeli settlements will do nothing to bring long-needed stability and peace to the region."
More than 80 UN member states have condemned Israel's plan to steal more Palestinian land.
“Such decisions are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law and must be immediately reversed," Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said on behalf of the countries. "We underline in this regard our strong opposition to any form of annexation."
“We reiterate our rejection of all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,” he added.
Netanyahu—who once displayed a map of the "New Middle East" in which there is no Palestine—last year promised that "there will be no Palestinian state."
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other officials have also vowed to annex either some or all of the West Bank.
Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the ongoing Gaza genocide. The ICC has also reportedly weighed arrest warrants for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich over the far-right officials' plans to expand illegal settler colonies in the West Bank and annex the occupied territory.
Smotrich—who denies the existence of Palestinian people—said Sunday that "we are continuing the revolution of settlement and strengthening our hold across all parts of our land."
While Trump has publicly stated that he "will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank," he has done nothing to stop Netanyahu's government from proceeding with de facto annexation. To the contrary, Trump reportedly assented to recent Israeli land grabs.
Smotrich called Trump's reelection a "great opportunity" to normalize Israel's occupation and eventual annexation of Palestine.
Some prominent US officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have erroneously claimed that the West Bank is part of Israel.
Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza during the Six-Day War in 1967, subsequently ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forcibly expelled from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.
Both Israel's occupation of Palestine and the colonization of Palestinian lands by Jewish apartheid settlers are illegal under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law.
As the world’s attention focused on Gaza following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,053 Palestinians—at least 230 of them children—in the West Bank, according to UNRWA. Some settler pogroms have compared to the ethnic cleansing during the Nakba.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report Wednesday warning that "intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighborhoods, and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift."
"This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank," the report states.
Although not a CPC member, Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) last week reintroduced HR 7545, which would prohibit Israel from using US taxpayer funds for the seizure or destruction of Palestinian property or any support for annexing Palestinian land.
Earlier this month, a group of Democratic US senators urged Trump ahead of his February 11 meeting with Netanyahu to "clearly reinforce the opposition of the US government to Israeli government actions that set the conditions for irreversible annexation.”
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Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Colonies in Occupied West Bank
"The ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support," said one observer.
Dec 21, 2025
Israel's Cabinet on Sunday finalized approval of 19 new Jewish-only settler colonies in the illegally occupied West Bank, a move the apartheid state's far-right finance minister said was aimed at thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Cabinet ministers approved the legalization of the previously unauthorized settler outposts throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, bringing the total number of new settlements in recent years to 69.
The move will bring the overall total number of exclusively or overwhelmingly Jewish settlements—which are illegal under international law—to more than 200, up from around 140 just three years ago.
Included in the new approval are two former settlements—Kadim and Ganim—that were evacuated in compliance with the now effectively repealed 2005 Disengagement Law, under which Israel dismantled all of its colonies in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank.
"This is righting a historic injustice of expulsion from 20 years ago," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who is a settler—said on Sunday. "We are putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state."
"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the inherited land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of our path," Smotrich added.
Following an earlier round of approval for the new settlements last week, Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “All Israeli settlement activity is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month denounced Israel's "relentless" settlement expansion.
Such colonization, said Guterres, "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials—some of whom, including Smotrich, deny the very existence of the Palestinian people—have vowed that such a state will not be established.
While Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—is under pressure from right-wing and far-right government officials, settlers, and others to annex all of the West Bank, US President Donald Trump recently said that "Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened."
Some doubted Trump's threat, with Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) executive director Sarah Leah Whitson reacting to the new settlements' approval by posting on X that "the ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support."
Israel seized and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza in 1967, ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the Jewish terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forced from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.
Settlers often attack Palestinians and their property, including in deadly pogroms, in order to terrorize them into leaving so their land can be stolen. Israeli colonists have also attacked Israel Defense Forces soldiers they view as standing in the way of their expansion.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
As the world's attention focused on Gaza during the past two years, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,039 Palestinians—at least 225 of them children—in the West Bank. This year, at least 233 Palestinians, including at least 52 children, have been killed so far, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.
On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, including a 16-year-old boy, Rayan Abu Muallah, who the Israel Defense Forces said was shot after he threw an object at its troops.
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