Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE led regional states yesterday in condemning Israel’s move to ease settlement expansion and widen its powers in the West Bank, a step critics said went in the direction of annexing occupied land.
Britain also called on Israel to reverse its decision.
“Any unilateral attempt to alter the geographic or demographic make-up of Palestine is wholly unacceptable and would be inconsistent with international law. We call on Israel to reverse these decisions immediately,” the British government added.
Sunday’s decisions by Israel’s security cabinet will make it easier for Jewish settlers to buy land in the West Bank and give Israeli authorities more power to act in areas supposedly under full Palestinian control, two senior Israeli ministers said.
One of them, ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said in announcing the decisions that the government would ‘continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state’.
A joint statement by foreign ministers of Middle Eastern and some other Muslim countries, including Egypt and Türkiye, denounced the decisions as a violation of international law that would undermine the vision of a two-state solution as well as stability in the region.
They said the moves meant to entrench Israeli settlement of the West Bank, displacing Palestinians and imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty there.
Annexing the territory has long been a priority of far-right parties in Netanyahu’s coalition.
Jordan, Egypt, the UAE and Türkiye all have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Saudi Arabia has said it will not establish such relations until the formation of a Palestinian state.
Most nations have long backed the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as the best way to resolve the generations-old conflict and see the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, as the largest part of that future state.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and Smotrich issued a joint statement explaining the decisions of the five-member security cabinet, which were not published in full.
The security cabinet decided to repeal a law dating from Jordan’s control of the West Bank before 1967 to make land registries public rather than confidential, and to remove a requirement for a permit from a civil administration office.
They said these moves would make it easier for Jews to purchase land in the West Bank.
Hagit Ofran from the Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now said the decision was barred by international law and represented a step toward annexation of the West Bank.
“The decision to allow every Israeli the right to buy land in the West Bank without government approval, without inspection, is also another way of saying it’s normal life. It’s not occupied territories, it’s like part of Israel,” she said. Annexation is opposed by US President Donald Trump, who last year said he would not allow Israel to carry out such a step.
“It’s not going to happen,” Trump, who is expecting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for a meeting today, said in September.
Katz and Smotrich also said that the Israeli government had decided to expand monitoring and enforcement actions regarding water offences, damage to archaeological sites and environmental hazards to areas A and B of the West Bank.
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