Far-right Israeli minister orders preparations for West Bank annexation
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January 2025.
In a statement on Monday, Smotrich voiced his hope that the new administration in Washington will recognise Israel’s push for “sovereignty” over the occupied territory.This article below is dated August 31st 2023.
‘It’s like 1948’: Israel cleanses vast West Bank region of nearly all Palestinians
“There are almost no Palestinians remaining in a vast area stretching east from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho. Most of the communities who lived in the area — which covers around 150,000 dunams, or 150 square kilometers, of the occupied West Bank — have fled for their lives in recent months as a result of intensifying Israeli settler violence and land seizures, backed by the Israeli army and state institutions.
The near-total emptying of the region’s Palestinian population shows how Israel’s slow but gradual process of ethnic cleansing is continuing apace, effectively annexing large swathes of the occupied territory for exclusive Jewish settlement.” […]