Netanyahu stops bills advancing West Bank annexation after Vance criticism

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered a halt to the advancement of parliamentary bills linked to the annexation of the West Bank, after the US vice-president, JD Vance, described a vote on two bills in the Knesset as an “insult”.

- Lorenzo Tondo

The bills applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, which would be tantamount to the annexation of land Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, barely a week after Donald Trump pushed through a deal aimed at ending a two-year Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Asked by reporters about the vote at the end of a two-day visit to Israel, Vance said: “If it was a political stunt, it is a very stupid one and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of President Trump is that the West Bank will not be annexed. This will always be our policy.”

Yesterday afternoon, Ofir Katz, the chair of Israel’s coalition government, said Netanyahu had instructed him not to advance bills pertaining to annexation, and Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday’s vote had been a “deliberate political provocation” to sow division during Vance’s visit.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, landed in Israel yesterday, becoming the latest in a recent string of US officials to visit the country. He described any plan to extend Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory as “potentially threatening for the peace deal”.

“They’re a democracy, they’re going to have their votes and people are going to take these positions,” Rubio said. “But at this time, it’s something that we ... think might be counterproductive.”