Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich Calls for Annexation of Gaza and South Lebanon

JERUSALEM Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called Sunday for the annexation of parts of south Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and for Israeli forces to “go to war” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“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 along the same lines where it began, what will deter the enemy from going to war again,” Smotrich said in a podcast for Israeli news site Ynet.

The “yellow line” demarcates the area of Gaza already under Israeli military control after the recent war triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

“I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority that supports terror,” he added, using the biblical term for the West Bank.

Smotrich is the leader of a far-right party that advocates the annexation of the entire West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.

Various Israeli political leaders, both in the ruling right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the opposition, have come out against the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The country is heading for elections on October 27, with Netanyahu locked in a tight contest as he seeks to stay in power.

“His statements are an explicit call for escalation, annexation and displacement, aimed at undermining the prospects of an independent Palestinian state,” the Ramallah-based authority said in a statement.

At least 1,110 Palestinians, including a number of militants, have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian official figures.

Israeli figures show at least 49 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations during the same period.

The E1 plan, approved by Israel last year after decades of being frozen, notably due to pressure from successive US administrations, would further isolate Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

Gali Baharav-Miara’s office announced the decision “to postpone the deadline for submitting bids by one month, so that this date will fall after election day” in order to “reduce concern over the tender being used for election propaganda”.