Media Wire

Israel’s finance minister tells authorities to prepare for West Bank annexation

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has told his department to prepare for the annexation of the occupied West Bank in the wake of Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections.

Speaking at a meeting of his far-right Religious Zionism party, Smotrich said that Trump’s victory provided an “important opportunity” and that “the time has come to apply sovereignty” over the West Bank.

According to a statement from his office, Smotrich stated that he had instructed Israeli authorities overseeing West Bank settlements “to begin professional and comprehensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure” for extending sovereignty.

As well as finance minister, Smotrich has a role in the defence ministry overseeing illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Smotrich and other far-right politicians in Israel have hailed Trump’s triumph in the presidential elections last week, hoping he will give the green light for Israel to officially annex Palestinian territory captured in 1967.

Israel has already annexed East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights in unilateral moves that have never been accepted by the international community but were recognised by Washington during Trump’s first term in office.

At Monday’s meeting, Smotrich noted he would push the government to get the incoming Trump administration to recognise the annexation of the entire West Bank.

During Trump’s 2017-2021 term as president Israel seemed primed to announce it was annexing Area C, the part of the West Bank fully controlled by the Israeli military. However, those plans never came to fruition after intense international pressure and cold feet from Washington.

Smotrich has called for an aggressively expansionist Israeli policy and last month stressed Israel should expand “little by little” until its borders reached Damascus.

“It is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus,” he said in an interview for the documentary, In Israel: Ministers of Chaos, citing the “greater Israel” ideology, which envisions the expansion of the state across the Middle East.

IFP Media Wire

Reports and views published in the Media Wire section have been retrieved from other news agencies and websites, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website. The IFP may change the headlines of the reports in a bid to make them compatible with its own style of covering Iran News, and does not make any changes to the content. The source and URL of all reports and news stories are mentioned at the bottom of each article.

Recent Posts

Iran strongly condemns Israeli official West Bank annexation comment

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman has strongly condemned an Israeli cabinet minister’s statement regarding the annexation…

8 minutes ago

Minister: Iran’s population will decrease to 35 million in over 7 decades

Iran’s interior minister issues a stark warning about the aging population of the country if…

16 minutes ago

Iran reeling from murder of heart specialist

Iranians are still reeling from the murder of a heart specialist in the country where…

4 hours ago

Heavy autumn snow blankets Damavand

The first autumn snow has whitened the heights of northeastern Tehran.

4 hours ago

Iran says 4 Israeli-backed terrorists killed, 7 injured in anti-terror operation

An Iranian official has announced that four mercenary terrorists affiliated with the Zionist regime were…

4 hours ago

US says to continue sending arms to Israel despite dire conditions in Gaza

The United States will not change its policy on weapons transfers to Israel even though…

6 hours ago