MILITARY BRACING FOR WEST BANK ANNEXATIONS

JERUSALEM Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday he ordered the military to step up preparations for Israel’s pending annexation of parts of the West Bank, a plan that could stoke Palestinian violence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to begin cabinet discussions on July 1 on extending Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, occupied territory that Palestinians seek for a state.

Gantz’s directive appeared to indicate that the centrist politician had either signed on to the move, or at least believed it would be inevitable, given right-wing support in the Netanyahu-led coalition cabinet.

The Palestinians have rejected Trump’s proposal, under which the vast majority of West Bank settlements built by Israel on land captured in 1967 would be incorporated into “contiguous Israeli territory.”