US President Donald Trump has drawn a sharp line against Israel’s far-right ambitions, declaring he will not allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The unexpected intervention came just days before Netanyahu’s scheduled meeting with the American leader in Washington, underscoring the growing tension between Israel’s most important ally and the hardline elements of its governing coalition.
In an interview with reporters at the White House on Thursday, Trump made his position clear, ahead of Netanyahu’s address to the United Nations General Assembly. “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, It’s not going to happen,” he said pointedly. Trump added that talks aimed at halting the devastating war in Gaza were progressing rapidly. “We’re getting pretty close to having a deal on Gaza, and maybe even peace,” he told journalists in the Oval Office.
The comments are among the strongest by a US president against unilateral annexation plans, which have been repeatedly championed by ultranationalists in Netanyahu’s government. Those figures view annexation as a way to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. But international pressure is mounting. The UK and Germany have both cautioned Israel against the move, while UN Secretary General António Guterres has described annexation as “morally, legally and politically intolerable.”
Arab leaders have also voiced deep concern. During meetings with Trump on the sidelines of the UN this week, senior figures from across the Middle East warned of serious consequences if Israel were to seize Palestinian territories outright. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said after one such session: “I think the president of the US understands very well the risks and dangers of annexation in the West Bank.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was prevented by Washington from travelling to New York, delivered his UN address by video link. He welcomed the wave of nations recognising a Palestinian state in recent days among them Canada, Australia, the UK and Portugal and vowed that a future Palestinian authority would take full responsibility for Gaza once Israeli forces withdrew. “Hamas will not have a role to play in governance,” Abbas said. “A Palestinian state must assume full responsibilities for the Gaza Strip and be connected with the West Bank.”
The backdrop to the diplomatic manoeuvring is a spiralling humanitarian crisis. On Wednesday, more than 80 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, mostly in Gaza City. The same day, Israel closed the only crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, cutting off more than two million Palestinians from the outside world, following a fatal shooting in which two Israeli soldiers were killed by a Jordanian gunman.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, Israeli operations since October 2023 have killed more than 65,000 people, including over 18,000 children. The United Nations has warned that more than half a million Gazans are living in “catastrophic” conditions marked by famine and death. Israel, however, denies it is weaponising hunger.
Netanyahu now finds himself facing intense diplomatic isolation. In addition to growing recognition of Palestine, the European Commission has unveiled plans to restrict trade with Israel and sanction extremist ministers within his government measures that, if adopted, would mark the EU’s toughest response yet to the conflict. Meanwhile, major corporations are also beginning to distance themselves: Microsoft this week cut off services to a unit of Israel’s Ministry of Defence after evidence emerged that its technology had been used for surveillance operations in Gaza.
Still, the Israeli leader has remained defiant, insisting that Israel must become more self-sufficient in the face of what he describes as hostile international moves. But with Trump’s blunt rejection of annexation and a possible Gaza ceasefire deal on the horizon, Netanyahu’s room for manoeuvre appears increasingly constrained.
Erizia Rubyjeana
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