Arab countries have criticised the Israeli Knesset’s preliminary passage of two bills to annex the occupied West Bank and the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc in East Jerusalem as a ‘flagrant violation of international law’.
The Knesset yesterday approved the two bills in a preliminary reading. Both drafts still must pass three additional readings to become law.
In a statement, Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman Fouad Al Majali called the move “a flagrant violation of international law and a blow to the two-state solution, as well as to the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and to establish their independent, sovereign state on the June 4, 1967 lines, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital.”
Qatar’s foreign ministry denounced the Israeli bills as “a blatant assault on the historical rights of the Palestinian people and a clear violation of international law and UN resolutions.”
The Saudi foreign ministry expressed the kingdom’s “complete rejection of all settlement and expansionist violations carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities.”
It reiterated support for the Palestinian people’s “inalienable and historical right to establish an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with relevant international legitimacy resolutions.”
The Palestinian foreign ministry likewise strongly rejected the Israeli bills, emphasising that the occupied territories in Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, “form a single geographic unit, over which Israel has no sovereignty”.
“Sovereignty belongs exclusively to the Palestinian people and their leadership, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation, based on the natural, historical and legal rights of the Palestinian people in their homeland, Palestine, and its close connection to international law, human rights and United Nations resolutions,” it said in a statement.
Hamas also rejected the bills, calling Israel’s efforts to annex the occupied West Bank “null and void” “The occupation’s frantic attempts to annex the West Bank are illegal and invalid. They do not change the fact that the West Bank is Palestinian land under history, international law and the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice,” it said in a statement.
The Knesset vote came despite opposition from US President Donald Trump, who said last month that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. It also came as US Vice President JD Vance is currently visiting Israel.
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