Army told to prep for annexation

ISRAELI Defence Minister Benny Gantz said yesterday he had 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 said he had ordered the chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, to “examine all the ramifications and the required preparations” stemming from moving ahead with the peace plan US President Donald Trump announced in January, a blueprint that could ease annexation.

In a separate statement, Gantz said “preparations by the Israel Defence Forces should be stepped up ahead of pending diplomatic moves regarding the Palestinians”.

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

The Trump plan also envisages a Palestinian state under near-complete Israeli security control.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official, said: “The call of the occupation army to get ready for annexation of the West Bank is a call for war.”