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settlements
All Likud Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex Entire West Bank This Month
The 15 ministers said that Israel's "strategic partnership, backing, and support of the U.S. and President Donald Trump" make this a "propitious time" to formally steal most of Palestine.
Jul 02, 2025
All 15 Israeli government members representing Likud on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who leads the right-wing party—to annex the entire West Bank of Palestine before the end of the Knesset's summer session on July 27, citing support from U.S. President Donald Trump.
The ministers, along with Likud Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, sent a letter to Netanyahu asserting that "this is the time to approve in government a decision to apply sovereignty" over Judea and Samaria, the biblical name for the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem.
"Following the state of Israel's historic achievements in the face of Iran's Axis of Evil and its sympathizers, the task must be completed and the existential threat from within must be eliminated, to prevent another massacre in the heart of the country," the letter argues, referring to the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran, in which the United States intervened by bombing Iranian nuclear sites.
"The strategic partnership, backing, and support of the U.S. and President Donald Trump have made it a propitious time to move forward with it now, and ensure Israel's security for generations," the ministers said. "The October 7 massacre proved that the doctrine of settlement blocs and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the remaining territory is an existential danger to Israel. It's time for sovereignty."
Asked during a Wednesday press briefing for reaction on the ministers' call to annex the West Bank, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce replied, "I think that is specifically something that the White House would be able to answer for you, but I also know that our position regarding Israel... is that we stand with Israel and its decisions and how it views its own internal security."
Netanyahu is set to travel to Washington, D.C. next week to meet with Trump, despite an International Criminal Court warrant for the Israeli leader's arrest for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza including murder and forced starvation.
I asked State Dept spox Bruce about Israeli minister’s call to annex the occupied West Bank — she referred me to the WH, saying the US "stand with Israel and its decisions.”
I followed up asking if the two-state solution remains US policy, she said Trump is “realistic… Gaza is… pic.twitter.com/GdtN0tTDdy
— Rabia İclal Turan (@iclalturan) July 2, 2025
Palestinians and their defenders warned during the 2024 U.S. presidential election cycle that a victoriousTrump might lift the few guardrails the Biden administration had placed on Israel and unleash Netanyahu to seize all of Palestine. The goal of Israel's far right is expansion of Israeli territory to include what proponents call "Greater Israel," which is based on biblical boundaries that stretched from Africa to Turkey to Mesopotamia.
Netanyahu has repeatedly displayed maps showing the Middle East without Palestine, all of whose territory is shown as part of Israel. However, annexation had previously been most closely associated with far-right figures outside Likud like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of Jewish Power.
Following Trump's reelection last November, Smotrich said that "the year 2025 will be, with God's help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria."
"The only way to remove the threat of a Palestinian state from the agenda is to apply Israeli sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria," he continued. "I have no doubt that President Trump, who showed courage and determination in his decisions during his first term, will support the state of Israel in this move."
Smotrich praised Wednesday's letter, declaring he'll be ready to impose Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank as soon as Netanyahu "gives the order," according to The Times of Israel.
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin, one of the Likud members who signed the letter, said Wednesday: "I think that this period, beyond the current issues, is a time of historic opportunity that we must not miss. The time for sovereignty has come, the time to apply sovereignty. My position on this matter is firm, it is clear."
Israel occupied the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights in Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel eventually withdrew from the Sinai but unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 while keeping control of the rest of the West Bank and Golan Heights. Although Israel dismantled settlements and withdrew troops from Gaza in 2005, it is still considered an occupier under international law and its conduct during the current invasion, bombardment, and siege of the coastal enclave is the subject of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) genocide case.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding Jewish-only settlements 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. In recent weeks, Israeli settlers have attacked Israel Defense Forces soldiers they view as standing in their way and Palestinians alike in the West Bank.
From 1978 until new guidelines were announced by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the first Trump administration, the U.S. State Department also considered Israel's settlements to be "inconsistent with international law."
In July 2024, the ICJ found Israel's occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The tribunal also said 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 is focused on Gaza, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed upward of 950 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 2023, including at least 200 children, while wounding thousands more, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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New Illegal Settlements Show Israel Is 'Blatantly Working to Destroy the Palestinian People'
"The international community is enabling Israel's crimes by standing aside while millions of Palestinians are subjected to this racist and brutal regime of the Israeli government," said the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.
May 30, 2025
Israeli government officials confirmed Thursday that they have approved the largest expansion of unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank in decades, including the construction of new settlements and the "legalization" under Israeli law of existing outposts in the Palestinian territory.
The decision, reportedly made during a secret Israeli security cabinet meeting last week, drew sharp backlash from Israeli human rights organizations. A spokesperson for B'Tselem said the latest expansion of settlements—which the International Court of Justice has condemned as part of an illegal annexation campaign—shows that "Israel continues to promote Jewish supremacy through the theft of Palestinian land and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank."
"The Israeli government is openly and blatantly working to destroy the Palestinian people, and any chances for a normal future for the people living between the Jordan River and the sea," the spokesperson said. "The international community is enabling Israel's crimes by standing aside while millions of Palestinians are subjected to this racist and brutal regime of the Israeli government."
Israeli settlements in the West Bank have grown rapidly since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, with the United Nations Human Rights Office estimating that Israel moved ahead with plans to build more than 20,000 housing units in new or existing settlements between November 2023 and October 2024.
"This extremist Israeli government is trying by all means to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state," Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told Reuters on Thursday.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that's the government's objective, declaring that settlement expansion "prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel."
"The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: The annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal."
The new expansion will add nearly two dozen settlements, according to far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement and vocally supports annexation of the Palestinian territory.
"This is a great day for settlement and an important day for the state of Israel," Smotrich wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
The announcement came amid continued Israeli raids and home demolitions in the West Bank, alongside the Israeli military's devastating assault on the Gaza Strip. Israel's attacks have displaced tens of thousands of people in the West Bank and virtually the entire population of Gaza.
It's unclear where the new settlements will be located in the West Bank, given that the expansion decision was made in secret. The Israeli anti-occupation group Peace Now suggested that the secrecy could stem from "concerns about the proceedings in the International Criminal Court, which has begun investigating Israel's settlement construction and development as possible war crimes."
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court was considering arrest warrants against Smotrich and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for their roles in expanding West Bank settlements.
"The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: The annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal," Peace Now said in a statement Thursday. "The cabinet's decision to establish 22 new settlements—the most extensive move of its kind since the Oslo Accords, under which Israel committed not to establish new settlements—will dramatically reshape the West Bank and entrench the occupation even further."
"At a time when both the Israeli public and the entire world is demanding an immediate end to the war, the government is making clear—again and without restraint—that it prefers deepening the occupation and advancing de facto annexation over pursuing peace," the group added.
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Israel Releases Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian Filmmaker Beaten by Settlers
"After being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family," said No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham.
Mar 25, 2025
Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who earlier this month won an Academy Award for No Other Land—a documentary about ethnic cleansing in the illegally occupied West Bank—was released from Israel Defense Forces custody Tuesday after being brutally attacked by Israeli settlers and violently detained by army troops.
Yuval Abraham, one of two Israeli co-directors of No Other Land, said on the social media site X that "after being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family."
On Monday, Israeli settlers attacked the village of Susya in the southern Hebron Hills, injuring numerous residents and activists, according to Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan, who posted video of the assault. Members of the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence who went to Susya to document the attack said they were assaulted by settlers who smashed their car windows, punched them, and hit them with sticks.
"The sickening reality is this is what many Palestinians face and we don't even hear about it."
Abraham said that settlers beat Ballal, injuring his head and stomach. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers then "invaded the ambulance he called" and seized Ballal, according to Abraham.
Lamia Ballal, the filmmaker's wife, told The Associated Press that she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with their rifles and another person in civilian clothing who appeared to be recording the attack.
"Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more," she said. "I felt afraid."
The IDF claimed that Ballal and two other Palestinians were detained on suspicion of throwing rocks during the settler attack. One Israeli was also detained.
Lea Tsemel, an attorney for the three detained Palestinians, said the men spent the night on the floor of a military base and received the bare minimum of medical care.
Responding to Monday's events, Basel Adra, No Other Land's second Palestinian co-director, said that "this is how they erase Masafer Yatta," the collection of 19 West Bank hamlets whose ongoing ethnic cleansing is documented in the film.
The international film industry led condemnation of Ballal's detention and demands for his release.
"Such treatment of an internationally acclaimed filmmaker gravely undermines artistic freedom, human rights, and freedom of speech—core values vital to democratic societies," a Change.org petition by "members of the global film community" said.
The Berlin Film Festival, where No Other Land premiered and won best documentary last year, called Ballal's ordeal "very distressing" in a Tuesday Instagram post.
"It is vital in open democracies that we safeguard the role of journalism and documentary filmmaking and protect its makers from reprisal and violence," the organization said.
U.S. actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, a longtime Palestine defender,
wrote on Instagram: "Every filmmaker and Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] member should be acting together in protest. No matter where you stand on this issue this is an attack on our beloved art form of filmmaking. Hamdan Ballal is a political prisoner and this is an international incident and violation of human rights."
"Many of us are not surprised by this behavior from the lawless settlers and the IDF at this point," Ruffalo added. "Kill[ing] journalists and abducting filmmakers is not an accident but a design for the eradication of a people and their culture. Free Ballal!"
Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem for 58 years. Today, more than 700,000 Israelis live in over 140 settlements built and expanded on Palestinian land. Last year, the International Court of Justice—which is hearing a genocide case against Israel led by South Africa—issued an advisory opinion that Israel's occupation is an illegal form of apartheid that must end immediately.
Assaults on Palestinians by Israeli settlers, who are protected and sometimes joined by IDF troops, have increased dramatically since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel led by Gaza-based Hamas, with more than 900 West Bank residents killed and thousands more wounded over the past 17 months,
according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
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