While eyes are on Gaza, push to annex West Bank accelerates

While attention at home and abroad has been diverted by the Gaza war, Israel’s far-right government has made a major leap towards annexing the occupied West Bank over the past year, creating 43 new outposts and confiscating huge swathes of land , according to  Israeli and Palestinian observers.

They predict even greater acceleration towards Israeli supremacy and sovereignty during the next year with the advent of the second Trump administration and the consolidation of Israeli administrative changes that facilitate land poaching and settlement activity.

“Israel has been moving faster than ever in increasing the Jewish presence,” said Ghassan Khatib a former Palestinian Authority Labor minister who teaches at Bir Zeit University.  

A report by settlement watchdog Peace Now issued last month also highlighted the period since the October 7 brutal Hamas attack started the war as an inflection point. “The war and the political agenda set by settlers to impose sovereignty in the West Bank have created conditions that are being exploited for unprecedented settlement activities, leading to a rapid and unchecked settlement process,” the report said.

Public attention now is fixed on northern Gaza where the IDF is displacing civilians en masse and carrying out devastating bombardments in what it says is an effort to prevent Hamas from regrouping. The anti-occupation IDF veterans group, Breaking the Silence, has labelled  the offensive “ethnic cleansing”.

A senior IDF officer said early this month that Palestinians displaced by the army will not be allowed to return to their homes but the IDF spokesman later sought to counter this impression, telling journalists the remarks had been taken out of context and do not reflect IDF values.