Donald Trump has said he will not allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The US president told White House reporters ahead of Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly on Friday: “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank… It’s not going to happen.”

Trump, who will meet Netanyahu on Monday, also said a ceasefire deal over the war in Gaza was “pretty close”.

Israel is facing increasing global pressure to end the conflict and occupation of the West Bank, as a wave of Western states formally recognise an independent Palestinian state. Far-right Israelis view annexation as a means of preventing a Palestinian state being created.

Ultranationalists in Netanyahu’s governing coalition have repeated calls for Israel to annex the West Bank – part of the Palestinian territories – outright.

The UK and Germany say they have warned Israel against annexation, while UN Secretary General António Guterres said such a move would be “morally, legally and politically intolerable”.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday that he had spoken to Netanyahu as well as other Middle Eastern leaders.

“We’re getting pretty close to having a deal on Gaza, and maybe even peace,” Trump said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly via video link the same day that he was ready to work with world leaders to implement a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians that was announced by France on Monday.

The 89-year-old was barred from travelling to New York, where the UN headquarters are, by the US.

Abbas thanked countries which had recently recognised a Palestinian state in a wave of declarations that began with Canada, Australia, the UK and Portugal on Sunday, and was followed by France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra and Denmark.

The US is currently opposed to recognising Palestine, saying such a move would be a reward for Hamas.

“Hamas will not have a role to play in governance,” Abbas said in his speech. He also called for a Palestinian state to assume “full responsibilities” for the Gaza Strip following an Israeli withdrawal and connect it with the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

At the UN on Tuesday, Trump met the leaders of key Arab and Muslim nations, who warned him of consequences if Israel moved ahead with annexation.

“I think the president of the US understands very well the risks and dangers of annexation in the West Bank,” Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters afterwards.

On Wednesday morning, Israel closed the only crossing between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and neighbouring Jordan, preventing more than two million Palestinians from accessing the outside world.

The closure came days after two Israeli military personnel were shot dead near the crossing by a Jordanian gunman who was killed at the scene.

In Gaza, more than 80 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed by Israeli fire on Wednesday, most of them in Gaza City, local hospitals said.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 65,419 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hama-run health ministry, including more than 18,000 children.

In August, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed body, said that more than half a million people across Gaza were facing “catastrophic” conditions characterised by “starvation, destitution and death”. Netanyahu has repeatedly denied starvation is taking place in Gaza.

A United Nations commission of inquiry found Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a report Israel’s foreign ministry categorically rejected as “distorted and false”.

Israel is under increasing pressure to end the war and occupation.

In addition to more countries recognising a Palestinian state, the European Commission has unveiled plans to restrict trade with Israel and impose sanctions on extremist ministers in its government, which – if adopted – would be the EU’s toughest response to the war in Gaza.

This week, Microsoft cut off some services to a unit of Israel’s Ministry of Defence after an investigation found its technology had been used to conduct mass surveillance on people in Gaza.

But Netanyahu has called for Israel to embrace increased self-sufficiency.

Source: BBC News

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