United States President Donald Trump said he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, rejecting calls from some far-right politicians in Israel who want to extend sovereignty over the area and snuff out hopes for a viable Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced some pressure from his political allies to annex the West Bank, prompting alarm among Arab leaders, some of whom met on Tuesday with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
"I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope, I will not allow it. It's not going to happen," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
"There's been enough. It's time to stop now," he said.
Trump made the comments as Netanyahu was arriving in New York to deliver an address to the UN on Friday. Netanyahu's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's remarks.
Netanyahu recently said that, under his administration, Israel had "doubled Jewish settlement" in the West Bank and promised that "we will continue on this course".
Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, recently suggested annexing the West Bank as a response to several Western nations recently recognising a Palestinian state.
"The recognition by the UK, Canada, and Australia of a Palestinian state as a prize for the murderous [Hamas] terrorists requires immediate countermeasures," he said as reported by the Times of Israel.
Ben-Gvir called for "the immediate application of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria", the Biblical terms for the West Bank.
Israeli settlements have grown in size and number since Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war.
They stretch deep into the territory with a system of roads and other infrastructure under Israeli control, further slicing up the land.
A widely condemned Israeli settlement plan known as the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, received final approval in August. It will cut across land that the Palestinians seek for a state.
Trump met leaders and officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Türkiye, Indonesia and Pakistan on Tuesday to discuss the nearly two-year-long war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Arab and Muslim countries warned him about the grave consequences of any annexation of the West Bank — a message the US president "understands very well", according to Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud.
About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognised by most countries.
Israel refuses to cede control of the West Bank, a position it says has been reinforced since the Hamas-led militant attack on its territory, launched from Gaza on 7 October 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive on Gaza has killed more than 65,500 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel's military offensive in Gaza while saying Palestinians "reject" the October 7 attack on Israel and pledging that the militant group would have no role in governing Gaza after the war ends.
He also laid out his vision for what government would look like in territories once the war is over, saying that the Palestinian Authority is "ready to bear full responsibility for governance and security".
Abbas' Palestinian Authority exerts limited control over parts of the West Bank under agreements reached through the Oslo peace accords signed in 1993.
