Palestinian groups blast Israel's plan for West Bank annexation

Palestinian resistance movements say recent remarks by Israeli far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on the regime’s plan to annex the occupied West Bank are part of genocide of the Palestinian people.

Smotrich on Monday ordered preparations for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, expressing his hope the administration of US president-elect Donald Trump will recognize Israel’s push for “sovereignty” over the occupied territory.

Later in the day, Hamas said Smotrich’s remarks confirm the "colonial intentions" of the Israeli regime, and its denial of legitimate Palestinian rights.

The movement added that the remarks refute claims by those who are deluded into believing in peace and coexistence with the Israeli regime, which is built on "terrorism, rights theft, and land seizure."

“We reiterate that we and our Palestinian people and all resistance factions continue to confront the schemes of the occupation, and we will not allow the terrorist Smotrich and other Zionist war criminals to implement any of their malicious schemes,” Hamas said.

“The West Bank is a purely Palestinian land and an integral part of our independent Palestinian state, with al-Quds as its capital,” the group added.

Hamas urged the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations to take action to stop this Israeli regime, warning that such policies and schemes will increase regional and international tensions.

The Islamic Jihad movement also said Smotrich’s remarks acknowledge “the open war waged by the criminal entity” against the Palestinians “with the aim of taking control of their land and expelling the largest number of our Palestinian people.”

Noting that such remarks were made while an extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit was taking place in Saudi Arabia on the Israeli aggression on Gaza and Lebanon, the group said they are “a slap in the face to all those who have bet on the course of negotiations over the decades and to all the normalizing [regimes].”

Meanwhile, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said the Israeli minister’s statements are part of a comprehensive strategy pursued by Israel to end the presence of the Palestinian people on their land, including the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.

The group regretted that the US support and the international silence have further emboldened the Israeli regime.

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“The policies of ethnic cleansing adopted and declared by the occupation would not have reached this extent without the US support, international complicity, and the dangerous decline in the official Arab stance.”

The group noted that "some Arab regimes have not only remained silent on the Israeli aggression, but have also provided support to it."

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said Palestinians will remain rooted in their land, stressing that the national unity among the Palestinian factions is the key to thwarting the Israeli plots.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 43,603 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 102,929 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

Israel has ramped up violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since it launched the genocidal war in Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians and abducting thousands others.

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