Prime Minister Netanyahu must order annexation of the West Bank if the International Court of Justice declares the Israeli occupation illegal, a far-right minister says.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called on the prime minister to annex the occupied West Bank if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declares Israeli settlements illegal this week.
Smotrich told reporters that “no one will move the people of Israel from their land,” he told The Times of Israel on Monday.
The United Nations Supreme Court is expected to issue a non-binding ruling on Friday on the legal ramifications of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
“I hereby call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – if the International Court of Justice in The Hague decides that the settlement enterprise is illegal – to respond with a historic decision to apply sovereignty to the territories of the homeland,” Smotrich said.
The far-right minister also vowed to “thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state through massive construction, regulation of settlements, road construction and other measures on the ground” – all illegal under international law.
In February, fifty-two countries presented their arguments before the ICJ, also known as the World Court, on the legal consequences of Israel’s actions in the occupied territories, after the UN General Assembly requested an advisory opinion in 2022.
In 1967, Israel seized the West Bank, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem – the longest military occupation in modern history.
Under international law, an occupying power cannot move its citizens to occupied territory. Israel’s Supreme Court confirmed this in 2005.
This is not the first time that Smotrich – who himself lives in an illegal settlement – has called for the seizure of Palestinian land.
Last month, Israel’s hardline coalition government approved plans for thousands of new homes in the occupied West Bank and gave Smotrich sweeping powers to accelerate construction of illegal settlements – circumventing measures in place for 27 years.
Netanyahu’s Likud party has also pledged to “promote and develop settlement in all areas of the territory of Israel – in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria” – the biblical names for the occupied West Bank.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, said the move would only escalate tensions in the region, while Fatah warned that “settlers will be expelled from the West Bank as they were expelled from the Gaza Strip.”