The Knesset approved a non-binding motion in favor of annexing the entirety of the West Bank on July 23, a symbolic move that united the increasingly fractious right-wing governing coalition. The resolution, which passed 71-13, declared that the West Bank is “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people,” and that “Israel has the natural, historical and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel.”

Using Israeli nomenclature for the territory, the resolution called on the government to “apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.”

The motion was advanced by Likud MK Dan Illouz, Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman and Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer. Voting against were the Arab parties as well as the left-wing Democrats. The largest opposition parties, Yesh Atid and Blue & White, abstained. (ToI)

The new annexation push comes as the Israeli army escalates raids and arrests across the West Bank, with military operations reported Aug. 31 in the cities of Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah. Four days earlier, 58 Palestinians were injured in an IDF operation targeting Ramallah and el-Bireh. Among the casualties was a 13-year-old, who underwent surgery after being wounded in the abdomen. (Al Jazeera)

Combined with ongoing settler attacks, the military operations are disrupting the local Palestinian agricultural economy. Said Ciro Fiorillo, the Food & Agriculture Organization’s head of office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: “As the West Bank gears up for the annual olive harvest, the message from farmers is clear: This year’s harvest season is marked by uncertainty, and livelihoods are under unprecedented risk.” According to the FAO, the combination of state policies and settler violence has prevented Palestinians from accessing tens of thousands of dunums of farmland and pasture this season. (One dunum = 1,000 square meters) (UN News)

More than 40,000 Palestinians remain displaced from January’s Operation Iron Wall, which targeted Jenin and Tulkarm refugee camps. Those who could left for the homes of extended families in villages throughout the West Bank, while others remain in makeshift shelters in the immediate areas. The displaced say they fear a second Nakba, and the population “transfer” plan now contemplated for Gaza being extended to the West Bank. (Zeteo)

Photo: delayed gratification via New Jewish Resistance

Two days after that, Dec. 5, fire-fights erupted in Jenin as PA security forces responded to the theft of two of their vehicles. A PA statement said “a group of outlaws opened fire on the headquarters of the security services” and stole the two vehicles. Despite the designation of “outlaws,” the vehicles were reportedly paraded through the streets by a band flying the flags of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. (ToI)

This all comes a week after the IDF carried out raids in towns and villages across the West Bank, raids, detaining 15 Palestinians including a child. (TNA)

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has meanwhile introduced legislation to bar use of the term “West Bank” by the US government in favor of the Israeli designation “Judea & Samaria.” Dubbed the “Retiring Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government-use of Judea & Samaria (RECOGNIZING Judea & Samaria) Act,” the bill would require all official US documents and materials “to use the historically accurate term ‘Judea and Samaria,'” according to a statement from his office. “The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria go back thousands of years. The US should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.” (JP)

The bill unequivocally demonstrates support by the incoming Trump team for Israel’s annexationist agenda on the West Bank, which is actually already in progress.

Cotton has also sought to impeach President Biden over the “pause” the White House has imposed on some arms shipments to Israel, and sent a threatening letter to the International Criminal Court prosecutor over the warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Photo: delayed gratification via New Jewish Resistance

In this move, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant apparently overrode the authority of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds the post in the Defense Ministry with oversight of Israel’s West Bank “civil administration.” (ToI, JP) Smotrich, one of the most hardline figures in the new Israeli government, has been an open advocate of “transfer” of the Palestinian population from the West Bank to Jordan.

The outpost, dubbed Or Chaim, was evicted by Israei troops a second time two days later after settlers began to rebuild it. (ToI) It was widely assumed that removal of the outpost was undertaken as a demonstration to appease Sullivan on his visit.

Simultaneously, the Israeli government announced that it is preparing to demolish the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem, home to at least 180 people. Dozens of Palestinians protested near the village on Jan. 23 after the announcement by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who also said that he would visit the site with Smotrich and other cabinet ministers.

In making the announcement, Ben-Gvir explicitly invoked the eviction of Or Chaim, saying the government “will not hold Jews to one legal standard and Arabs to another.” Israeli’s Supreme Court approved removal of Khan al-Ahmar in September 2018, leaving it open to being demolished at any time. The Israeli government maintains the village was built without a permit, but authorities make it extremely difficult for Palestinians to obtain building permits in East Jerusalem and in the Israeli-administrated Area C, which covers more than 60% of the West Bank. Khan al-Ahmar lies within a key corridor stretching to the Jordan Valley, where Israel aims to expand settlements and link them with new highways, effectively cutting the West Bank into two.

Khan al-Ahmar residents say they will resist their removal. “Our fate is to remain in this area,” village spokesperson Eid Jahalin told Al Jazeera.

For years Israel has refused to connect Khan al-Ahmar to the electric grid and roads, and has repeatedly demolsithed structures at the site. Now, Israel is planning to demolish every single structure in the community and expel the residents. The demolitions are set to include the local school, which serves the children of nearby Palestinian communities similarly slated for removal. Israeli human rights group B’Tselem remarked after the 2018 Supreme Court decision: “Demolition and transfer are a war crime for which Israel’s government and military leadership will bear primary criminal liability, along with the judges who authorized it.”

While Israel has long pursued a de facto annexation policy on the West Bank, this is made explicit in the platform of the new ruling coalition, which states: “The nation of Israel has a natural right to the Land of Israel… In light of the belief in that aforementioned right, the prime minister will formulate and promote policies within whose framework sovereignty will be applied to Judea and Samaria.” (JP)

Photo: B’Tselem

In 2018, a district court ruled in favor of the settlers, declaring that the government had been unaware that the land was owned when it mapped out the area. The ruling was based on an Israeli law that transactions with legal faults were valid as long as they had been conducted in good faith. The Supreme Court, however, found that the authorities had not acted in good faith, and in fact were aware that there were inaccuracies in their documents and maps regarding lawful ownership of the land.

The court has given the government 36 months to arrange for the removal of the settlers to alternative housing. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement that the government would “exhaust all processes in order to leave the residents in their place.”

From Jurist, Aug. 29. Used with permission.

Note: The first such Israeli Supreme Court decision in favor of dispossessed Palestinian property owners was in 2011. Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) revealed on the same day as the new high court decision that the Israeli occupation has demolished 25 Palestinian structures in occupied territories and displaced 32 Palestinians over the past two weeks. The demolitions were carried out under the pretext of lacking building permits. “Fifteen of these structures, all but two of which were livelihood-related, were demolished in eight communities in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli military control,” OCHA confirmed. (MEMO)

Photo via Peace Now

According to Bachelet, the annexation would likely increase human rights violations. Palestinians would be restricted in where they could go, which could lead to difficulties obtaining essential services such as health and education. Additionally, Palestinians may be forced to move out of areas they now inhabit. If Israel’s settlements were to expand into these areas, this would increase tensions between the two groups.

Bachelet stated:

This is a highly combustible mix. I am deeply concerned that even the most minimalist form of annexation would lead to increased violence and loss of life, as walls are erected, security forces deployed and the two populations brought into closer proximity. The existing two-tier system of law in the same territory will become embedded, with devastating impacts on the lives of Palestinians who have little or no access to legal remedy.

UN human rights experts have also called on Israel to halt the annexation.

From Jurist, June 29. Used with permission.

Photo: Ma’an News Agency

Israeli human rights group B’tselem stated: “As the whole world battles an unprecedented and paralyzing healthcare crisis, Israel’s military is devoting time and resources to harassing the most vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank, that Israel has attempted to drive out of the area for decades. Shutting down a first-aid community initiative during a health crisis is an especially cruel example of the regular abuse inflicted on these communities, and it goes against basic…humanitarian principles during an emergency.” (B’tselem)

Photo: B’tselem

Among the plan’s key points:

Establish Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital, with a potential Palestinian capital on the outskirts to the east and north of the city.

Recognize the vast majority of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory as part of Israel—an open embrace of annexation. A Palestinian state would receive territory, mostly desert, near the Gaza Strip to compensate for the loss of about 30% of the West Bank. Gaza and the West Bank would be linked by high-speed rail. Ten border towns in Israeli territory along the Green Line are also named as possible compensation to a putative Palestinian state.

The Jordan Valley, a fertile breadbasket that makes up about a third of the West Bank, woud be recognized as part of Israel.

Offer a path to some form of Palestinian “statehood”—but with no army, and with overarching Israeli security control in some areas, including over the Gaza seacoast. The plan also sets a series of conditions the Palestinians would have to meet before receiving independence, including the “complete dismantling of Hamas,” which governs Gaza. The Palestinians would also be obliged to drop their case against Israel at the Interational Criminal Court, and refrain from joining any international organizations without Israel’s “consent.”

Palestinian refugees displaced from homes within what is now Israel would be refused “right of return.”

In a true Trumpian touch, the Palestinians will be allowed to “develop a resort area” on the north shore of the Dead Sea, “without prejudice to the State of Israel’s sovereignty at such location.”

In other words a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to the Palestinians to accept the status quo of bantustans, surrender much territory to actual Israeli annexation, give up their long-standing demand for justice for refugees—and call it “peace.”  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas predictably responded with “a thousand no’s” to the plan.

It was also rejected by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. His office said in a statement: “The position of the United Nations on the two-State solution has been defined, throughout the years, by relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions by which the Secretariat is bound… The United Nations remains committed to supporting Palestinians and Israelis in resolving the conflict on the basis of United Nations resolutions, international law, and bilateral agreements and realizing the vision of two States—Israel and Palestine—living side by side…within recognized borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.”

Clinging to the two-state solution at this late date may seem guileless, but certainly unilateral changes to the pre-1967 borders in Israel’s overwhelming favor constitute a blatant land-grab, presumably designed to be rejected by the Palestinians. (The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Jurist, MEMO, CommonDreams)

And Palestinians immediately mobilized in outrage. Hundreds marched across an Israeli checkpoint in the northern West Bank to protest the plan the day after t was announced. Some 500 gathered in the Palestinian town of Tubas and crossed the Tayseer checkpoint between Nablus and the Jordan Valley, overwhelming Israeli troops who attempted to bar their way. Tayseer checkpoint had actually been unmanned over the past few years, but soldiers were again stationed there as Israel sent reinforcements to the West Bank in the lead-up to Trump’s announcement. (+972)

Youth organizations also marched in Gaza, and issued a statement charging that Trump’s plan “aims to liquidate the legitimate and just Palestinian national rights” and “serves to consolidate the law of the jungle and the policies of the fait accompli, contrary to peace agreements and legitimate international resolutions.” (Maan News)

Photo: Maan News

Hidden from the headlines, the ongoing confiscation of Palestinian lands on the West Bank meanwhile continues. The day after the Gaza ceasefire took effect, Israeli troops forced several Palestinian families to evacuate their homes in the northern Jordan Valley, in order to make way for military exercises. Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the Jordan Valley’s Tubas district, said that Israel ordered 15 families, consisting of 98 individuals, mostly women and children, to evacuate their homes in the area of Hamsa al-Fawqa village. (Ma’an)

Two days before that, Israeli bulldozers uprooted some 120 fruitful olive trees in al-Lubban al-Gharbi village, west of Ramallah. Fawwaz Salem, former head of the village council, said the uprooting of the trees came a month after Israeli forces delivered a military order to a local resident, informing him of confiscation of his private plot near the village, in order to pave a settler-only road connecting the area to the nearby Israeli settlement of Beit Aryeh. The olive trees were planted across a plot of three dunams (0.74 acres). (Ma’an)

Amid the daily West Bank encroachment, Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom this week leaked details of a document said to outline Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” for an end to the Palestinian conflict, which was supposedly circulated among officials in Israel’s Foreign Ministry. According to the report, the plan calls for a reduced Palestinian state, to be dubbed “New Palestine,” in Gaza and on West Bank lands not already appropriated by settlement blocs. The areas of the blocs are to expand, incorporating outlying settlements, and will remain under Israeli control—apparently amounting to a de facto annexation. Jerusalem would remain undivided, with responsibilities for administration to be shared between Israel and “New Palestine,” but with Israel maintaining general control. (Ma’an, MEE)

The controversy comes amid growing violence. On Dec. 24, an IDF soldier was seriously wounded by sniper fire along the southern border of the Gaza Strip, prompting the army to return fire—the most serious escalation along the Gaza border since the 50-day summer conflict ended. According to the IDF, a Palestinian sniper opened fire on an IDF patrol near the Kisufim area in the southern Strip. The IDF then returned artillery and aerial fire, targeting the sources of the initial fire near Khirbet Hazaa as well as Hamas positions. A Palestinian report said the IDF fired tank shells into in the southern Strip. Hamas sources reported that the head of the local reconnaissance unit in the southern Strip was killed, and three others wounded. (YNet, Dec. 24)

On Dec. 25 that two Israeli settlers were injured after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at their car as it drove in the Jewish settlement of Maale Shomeron, in the Qalqiliya area of the West Bank. The Israeli military said in a statement that an 11-year-old girl was severely burned and her father lightly injured.

Maale Shomeron is a Jewish-only settlement immediately beside the Palestinian village of Azun, and is built on land confiscated from a number of local Palestinian villages. Maale Shomeron is part of a larger settlement bloc home to more than 11,000 Jews that curves deep into the West Bank, surrounding a number of Palestinian villages on at least three sides and preventing Palestinians from freely moving in the area. (Ma'an, Dec. 26)

That same day, Israeli forces destroyed a dairy factory in the Hebron village of al-Burj, the owner told Ma'an News Agency. Yasser Muhammad Salim Masharqa said that Israeli troops and civil administration officers escorted two bulldozers to the village and demolised the steel structure. The factory was located near the separation wall in the southwest of the Hebron district. The owner was not allowed to remove machinery from the plant before the demolition. Israel has demolished at least 359 Palestinian structures in the West Bank so far in 2014, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. (Ma'an, Dec. 25)

Also that day, Israeli forces demolished EU-funded irrigation pools in the northern Jordan Valley, locals told Ma'an. Israeli military vehicles arrived in the area of al-Jiftlik accompanied by bulldozers and demolished six irrigation pools used by Palestinian farmers. The construction of the pools was funded by grants from European donor countries. The pretext for the demolition was based on a "military order," locals said. The Jordan Valley covers around 30% of the occupied West Bank. Over 90% of the area is designated as Area C and off-limits to Palestinian construction. (Ma'an, Dec. 27)

Palestinian popular resistance activists in the southern West Bank on Dec. 27 attempted to build a tent village near the Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion in protest of Israeli confiscation of Palestinian lands. Dozens of Palestinians and foreign activists took part in a march near the town of Beit Fajjar to mark the beginning of the protest village, which was erected on lands Israel has declared its intention to confiscate. During the protest, however, Israeli forces arrived in the area and prevented the marchers from reaching the confiscated lands.

Coordinator of the Popular Resistance Committees in the southern West Bank, Muhammad Mheisen, said that the village would be named after slain Palestinian official Minister Ziad Abu Ein, who died after being assaulted by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration in the village of Turmusayya near Ramallah in early December. Israeli land confiscatio has accelerated markedly in the second half of 2014.

Since the start of the 1967 occupation of the West Bank, Israel has confiscated hundreds of thousands of dunums, by declaring them state lands. Israeli authorities in 1968 banned Palestinians from registering their lands, and subsequently took advantage of previously low rates of land registration to confiscate areas in use by locals but not registered. The confiscated lands were often used to construct Jewish settlements on the lands, with further confiscations carried out on the pretext of the settlements' security. (Ma'an, Dec. 27)

The first of three plans for the resettlement were filed on Aug. 25 for the Rashaydah tribe, which currently lives in the area. The new settlement will be surrounded from all sides by military-controlled zones and Israeli settlements, leaving the residents without grazing pastures for their livestock. In addition, the plans force different tribes and communities to live together, contrary to traditional practices.

Most Bedouin living in the West Bank arrived there after being expelled from their homes in the Negev desert in 1948. Ever since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, they have been forced to relocate several times to allow for Israeli settlements, firing zones, and new nature reserves. Hundreds of demolition orders have been issued against their homes and entire communities have been repeatedly expelled.

According to the Civil Administration, the plan's objective is to improve the standard of living in these communities and provide proper housing conditions. The  Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the purpose of the new settlement is to "allow the community to settle in an organized area with proper, suitable infrastructure." But Israeli human rights watchdog B'Tselem is calling for the Civil Administration to immediately withdraw the resettlement plans, stating that any development plans impacting the Bedouin must be undertaken with their informed consent. (BTselem, Sept. 17)