President Trump said Thursday that he will not allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank, a proposal that has circulated among members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank,” the president told reporters at an Oval Office event. “There has been enough. It’s time to stop right now.”
The president’s remarks come after several media outlets reported that Mr. Trump privately assured the leaders of Arab and majority-Muslim countries this week that he would oppose any Israeli attempt to annex the occupied territories.
In recent days, several Western countries, including France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, have moved to recognize a Palestinian state, prompting Netanyahu to promise a response. Some hardliners in Netanyahu’s ruling coalition have urged the Israeli government to respond by annexing much of the West Bank, but it is unclear whether Netanyahu will take that step.
Netanyahu did not immediately respond publicly to Mr. Trump’s remarks.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and it is home to millions of Palestinians and hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers. Since the 1990s, the territory has been divided into areas under Palestinian Authority control and areas fully governed by the Israeli military. Most proposals for an independent Palestinian state have included Israel relinquishing control of the vast majority of the West Bank.
If Israel annexed some or all of the West Bank, formally establishing control over the territory, the formation of a Palestinian state would be virtually impossible. The move may also irritate U.S.-aligned Arab countries, some of which have sought to improve relations with Israel.
Last weekend, Netanyahu called the growing pressure on the issue a “absurd prize for terrorism” and refused to allow the formation of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s government has come under increasing international scrutiny for its handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has destroyed much of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure and killed over 60,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not specify whether the dead were militants or civilians. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 others.
Mr. Trump has pressed Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire agreement that could result in the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, but an agreement has remained elusive.
