JERUSALEM, Oct 23: A bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation of land which Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel's parliament on Wednesday.
The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law and it coincided with the visit of US Vice President JD Vance to Israel, a month after President Donald Trump said that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party did not support the legislation, which was put forth by lawmakers outside his ruling coalition and passed by a vote of 25-24 out of 120 lawmakers. A second bill by an opposition party proposing the annexation of the Maale Adumim settlement passed by 31-9.
Some members in Netanyahu's coalition - from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism faction - voted in favour of the bill, which would require a lengthy legislative process to ultimately pass.
Members of Netanyahu's coalition have been calling for years for Israel to formally annex parts of the West Bank, territory to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.
Israel argues the territories it captured in the 1967 war are not occupied in legal terms because they are on disputed lands, but the United Nations and most of the international community regard them as occupied.
Netanyahu's government had been mulling annexation as a response to a string of its Western allies recognising a Palestinian state in September, but appeared to scrap the move after Trump's objection.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that the occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, is a single geographical unit over which Israel has no sovereignty," it said.
Palestinian militant group Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday that the Israeli votes on the West Bank and Maale Adumim bills reflected "the ugly face of the colonial occupation".
"We affirm that the occupation's frantic attempts to annex West Bank lands are invalid and illegitimate," it said.
AFP adds, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday warned Israel against annexing the West Bank, saying steps taken by parliament and settler violence threatened a Gaza peace deal.
"I think the president's made clear that's not something we can be supportive of right now," Rubio said of annexation as he boarded his plane for a visit to Israel.
Annexation moves are "threatening for the peace deal," he told reporters.
"They're a democracy, they're going to have their votes, and people are going to take these positions," he said.
"But at this time, it's something that we...think might be counterproductive," he said.
Asked about increased violence by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, Rubio said: "We're concerned about anything that threatens to destabilize what we've worked on."
But Rubio -- the latest high-ranking US visitor to Israel following Vice President JD Vance -- voiced optimism overall for preserving the peace deal.
"Every day there'll be threats to it, but I actually think we're ahead of schedule in terms of bringing it together, and the fact that we made it through this weekend is a good sign," Rubio said.
Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that Israel would not move to annex the occupied West Bank, after Washington warned that such a step could jeopardise a fragile US-brokered truce in Gaza.
"If it was a political stunt it was a very stupid political stunt and I personally take some insult to it," Vance said, as he wrapped up his three-day visit to Israel.
"The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel, the policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel, that will continue to be our policy."
The vote was boycotted and criticised by Likud, the right-wing party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, although far-right members of his ruling coalition support annexation. Ahead of his arrival later on Thursday, Washington's top diplomat, Marco Rubio, warned that annexation moves risked undermining the fragile ceasefire in Gaza. "REUTERS, AFP
