Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israeli forces to “go to war” in the occupied West Bank and for Israel to annex parts of the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, remarks the Palestinian Authority condemned as an open call for escalation.
Speaking on a podcast for the Israeli news site Ynet on Sunday, Smotrich said Israel should keep territory it has seized in recent fighting.
“I would like us to annex at least as far as the yellow line in Gaza and as far as the Litani River in Lebanon,” he said, arguing that if a war ends along the same lines where it began, nothing will deter the enemy from fighting again.
‘Dismantle the Palestinian Authority’
The “yellow line” marks the part of Gaza now under Israeli military control after the war that followed the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. The Litani River runs through southern Lebanon, about 30 kilometres north of the border.
Smotrich went further on the West Bank. “I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority that supports terror,” he said, using the biblical name that Israel’s right uses for the occupied territory.
Smotrich leads a far-right party that wants Israel to annex the entire West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. Politicians from both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition and the opposition have come out against the creation of a Palestinian state.
Palestinian Authority: ‘explicit call for escalation’
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority condemned the remarks. “His statements are an explicit call for escalation, annexation and displacement, aimed at undermining the prospects of an independent Palestinian state,” it said.
A West Bank already in crisis
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since the war in Gaza began. According to a tally based on Palestinian official figures, at least 1,110 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli soldiers or settlers. Israeli figures show at least 49 Israelis, including civilians and members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during military operations in the same period.
Settler attacks on Palestinians have risen sharply in recent months, often with little or no legal consequence. Netanyahu has dismissed the violence as the work of a “handful of rioters”.
More than 500,000 Israelis now live in West Bank settlements, which are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians.
An election in a month
Smotrich’s remarks come a month before Israel’s general election on October 27, in which Netanyahu faces a tight race to stay in power. They also come days after Netanyahu’s appearance at the UN General Assembly, where dozens of delegations walked out of the hall as he began to speak, a sign of Israel’s growing isolation.
Pakistan’s position
Pakistan has consistently supported an independent, sovereign Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, and has rejected annexation and the expansion of settlements as violations of international law. In New York this week, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif reaffirmed Pakistan’s support for Palestinian self-determination in talks with UN Secretary General António Guterres. Open calls from a serving Israeli minister to annex occupied land and to dismantle the Palestinian Authority are likely to strengthen demands from Pakistan and much of the Muslim world for international action.
Why it matters
Smotrich is not a fringe figure. He is Israel’s finance minister and a key partner in the governing coalition. His call to annex territory in Gaza and Lebanon and to wage war in the West Bank runs directly against international law and the two-state solution backed by most of the world. With an election approaching and settler violence rising, the remarks raise fresh fears of further escalation and of the permanent loss of the land on which a Palestinian state would be built.
This article draws on reporting published by Dawn.
Comments
Comments are reviewed by our editors before they appear. Please keep them civil and on topic. See our terms.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your view.