Bezalel Smotrich calls for annexation of southern Lebanon and part of Gaza

Far-right Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Sunday September 27 for the annexation of southern Lebanon and part of the Gaza Strip, also saying he was in favor of a war in the West Bank to drive out the Palestinian Authority.

“I would like us to annex at least as far as the Yellow Line in Gaza and as far as the Litani River in Lebanon, because if a war ends on the same lines as where it began, what will deter the enemy?” said the Minister of Finance in the government of Benyamin Netanyahu, accustomed to this type of declaration, in a podcast for the Israeli online media Ynet.

The “Yellow Line” in Gaza demarcates the area under Israeli military control – which represents more than 60% of the small Palestinian territory, ravaged by the war led by Israel after the unprecedented attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

In Lebanon, where Israel and pro-Iranian Hezbollah have clashed in recent months, the Israeli army still occupies a strip of around ten kilometers in the south of the country.

“I think we must wage war in Judea and Samaria to dismantle the Palestinian Authority which supports terrorism,” Bezalel Smotrich also declared, using the name given by the Israeli authorities to the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and whose annexation he advocates.

In a statement, the Palestinian Authority denounced an “explicit call for escalation, annexation and displacement” of Palestinians from the West Bank, “aimed at undermining the prospects of an independent Palestinian state.”