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Arab countries decried the Israeli Knesset’s preliminary passage of two bills on Wednesday to annex the occupied West Bank and the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc in East Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation of international law,” Anadolu reports.
The Knesset approved the two bills in a preliminary reading on Wednesday. Both drafts still must pass three additional readings to become law.
In a statement, Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Fouad al-Majali called the move “a flagrant violation of international law and a blow to the two-state solution, as well as to the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and to establish their independent, sovereign state on the June 4, 1967 lines, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital.”
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry denounced the Israeli bills as “a blatant assault on the historical rights of the Palestinian people and a clear violation of international law and UN resolutions.”
The Saudi Foreign Ministry expressed the kingdom’s “complete rejection of all settlement and expansionist violations carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities.” It reiterated support for the Palestinian people’s “inalienable and historical right to establish an independent state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with relevant international legitimacy resolutions.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry likewise strongly rejected the Israeli bills, emphasizing that the occupied territories in Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, “form a single geographic unit, over which Israel has no sovereignty.”
READ: Israeli Knesset passes preliminary reading of bill to annex occupied West Bank
“Sovereignty belongs exclusively to the Palestinian people and their leadership, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization, based on the natural, historical, and legal rights of the Palestinian people in their homeland, Palestine, and its close connection to international law, human rights, and United Nations resolutions,” it said in a statement.
The Palestinian group Hamas also rejected the Israeli bills, calling Israel’s efforts to annex the occupied West Bank “null and void.”
“The occupation’s frantic attempts to annex the West Bank are illegal and invalid. They do not change the fact that the West Bank is Palestinian land under history, international law, and the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice,” it said in a statement.
The Knesset vote came despite opposition from US President Donald Trump, who said last month that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. It also came as US Vice President JD Vance is currently visiting Israel.
Annexing the West Bank would effectively end the possibility of implementing a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as outlined in UN resolutions.
Israeli attacks have escalated across the West Bank since October 2023, killing more than 1,056 Palestinians, injuring 10,300, and detaining over 20,000 others, according to Palestinian figures.
In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
