ISRAEL –  Hardline Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on the prime minister to annex the occupied West Bank if the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rules Israeli settlements are illegal this week.

Smotrich told reporters, “no one will move the people of Israel from their land”, the Times of Israel quoted him saying. The UN’s top court is expected to deliver a non-binding ruling on the legal ramifications of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories on Friday.

“I hereby call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – if the International Court of Justice in The Hague does decide that the settlement enterprise is illegal – respond to them with a historic decision of applying sovereignty to the territories of the homeland,” said Smotrich. The far-right minister also promised to “thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state through massive construction, regulating settlements, building roads and other measures in the field” – all moves illegal under international law.

Fifty-two countries presented arguments at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, about the legal consequences of Israel’s actions in the occupied territories in February, after the UN General Assembly asked it in 2022 for an advisory opinion. Israel seized the West Bank in 1967 as well as Gaza and East Jerusalem – the longest military occupation in modern history.

According to international law, an occupying power cannot move its citizens into occupied land. Israel’s Supreme Court confirmed this in 2005. It’s not the first time Smotrich – who lives in an illegal settlement himself – has called for the seizure of Palestinian land. Last month, Israel’s hardline coalition government approved plans for thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank and gave Smotrich sweeping powers to expedite the construction of illegal settlements – bypassing measures in place for 27 years.

Netanyahu’s Likud party has also pledged to “advance and develop settlement in all parts of the land of Israel – in the Galilee, Negev, Golan Heights, and Judea and Samaria” – the biblical names for the occupied West Bank. Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, said the move would only escalate tensions in the region, while Fatah warned “the settlers will be removed from the West Bank as they were removed from the Gaza Strip”. (Al Jazeera)…[+]