Netanyahu Rejects Parliamentary Vote to Exert Israel’s Sovereignty Over West Bank
Netanyahu: “Without Likud support these bills are unlikely to go anywhere.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself from the parliamentary vote in favor of exerting Israel’s sovereignty over the West Bank. On Wednesday, a group of opposition lawmakers advanced two preliminary bills to this effect.
The legislation “passed its preliminary reading in the Knesset by a narrow margin of 25 to 24, despite a direct request from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw the proposal,” Israel’s Ynetnews reported.
Prime Minister Netanyahu slammed the opposition lawmakers for pushing the bills. “The Knesset vote on annexation was a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Likud party and the religious parties (the principal coalition members) did not vote for these bills, except for one disgruntled Likud member who was recently fired from the chairmanship of a Knesset committee,” Netanyahu’s office observed. “Without Likud support these bills are unlikely to go anywhere.”
The motion was passed by a vote of 25-24, but does not have sufficient support to win a majority in the 120-member House. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party did not back the legislation.
The opposition’s move is expected to lose in subsequent rounds of voting. “The bills must still pass three additional votes in the plenum and will now be referred to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for further consideration,” The Times of Israel noted. “It is highly unlikely that Netanyahu will allow either of the two bills to pass into law.”
The Jerusalem Post reports:
The recent Knesset vote on West Bank annexation was a “deliberate political provocation by the opposition” meant to incite conflict during US Vice President JD Vance’s visit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
The clarification came following Vance’s statement that US President Donald Trump would oppose Israeli annexation of the West Bank, and it would not happen, suggesting a move by Israeli lawmakers to that end looked like a stupid “political stunt”.
A bill applying Israeli law to the West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation of the territory Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, won preliminary approval from Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said after Vance’s remarks that the government had not decided to bring the vote on annexation forward at this stage in order to ensure the success of Trump’s multi-stage Gaza plan. (…)
Right-wing rivals of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly passed a West Bank annexation bill in first parliamentary reading, drawing a US rebuke as the allies advance a Gaza peace plan whose regional support hinges on acknowledging Palestinian territorial claims.
The vote in the Knesset took place while Vice President JD Vance was in Israel, and came shortly before Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in the country. In a recent interview given to Time Magazine, President Donald Trump strongly opposed any move by Israel to annex the West Bank.
Vice President Vance criticized the vote as a “political stunt.”
“I personally take some insult to it,” he told reporters at the end of 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.”
Secretary Rubio characterized the move as “counterproductive” for the ongoing Trump peace plan. “I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now. And we think it’s even threatening to the peace deal,” he cautioned.
IDF eliminates terrorists responsible for abducting Noa Argamani, others from Nova Festival
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced the elimination of terrorists who kidnapped Noa Argamani, Avinatan Or, and Eitan Mor from the Nova Festival on October 7, 2023. These terrorists were taken out before the Gaza ceasefire came into effect on October 11.
The IDF and Shin Bet security agency “precisely eliminated eight terrorists who infiltrated Israeli territory and took part in the brutal massacre on October 7th, among them key terrorists involved in the murder and abduction of Israeli civilians,” the Israeli military disclosed on Thursday.
In addition to that, “[f]our terrorists responsible for the abduction of Israeli civilians and for holding Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity have been eliminated,” the statement added.
🔴The IDF eliminated the terrorists responsible for the abduction of Noa Argamani, Avinatan Or, and Eitan Mor from the Nova music festival.
It can now be revealed that eight terrorists who infiltrated Israeli territory and took part in the brutal October 7th Massacre, among them… pic.twitter.com/5DRAr3ATdL
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 23, 2025
During the October 7 attack, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered 378 people and took 44 hostages at the Nova music festival. The tragedy had a silver lining when the IDF special forces, on June 8, 2024, rescued Noa Argamani and three other male hostages after 245 days of Hamas captivity.
The Ynetnews reported the details:
The IDF and Shin Bet security agency announced Thursday the targeted killings of several Hamas operatives in Gaza responsible for the
kidnapping of Israeli hostages from the Nova music festival, including survivors Eitan Mor, Avinatan Or and Noa Argamani. The strikes also eliminated additional terrorists who infiltrated Israel and participated in the October 7 massacre.
The statement revealed details of eight specific operations based on intelligence breakthroughs, focusing on the direct perpetrators of the mass abduction and killings.
Arafat Dib, who kidnapped and held Eitan Mor during his captivity, was killed on May 30, 2025. Ahmad Ibrahim Rajab Sha’er, responsible for the abduction of Avinatan Or and Noa Argamani, was killed on August 22. Another terrorist involved in Or’s kidnapping, Ahmad Abu Marhil, was eliminated on March 26. A fourth operative, Odeh Alyan Ahmad Qaware’a, who also held hostages during the war, was killed on August 26.
In addition, four Hamas fighters involved in the initial October 7 incursion into Israel were also killed. Bakr Mujida, who breached the Gaza border fence using a tractor, was killed on July 13. Firas Gharir Suilem al-Hadaf, who stormed Kibbutz Kissufim, was eliminated on August 23. Ibrahim Salah Rajab Bakhit and Muaid Mahmoud Muhammad Nofal, who also took part in the assault, were killed on July 6 and March 27, respectively.
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Comments
Islam is a cancer.
Treat it with radiation.
If only Martin Walker had confirmed the launch codes…😆😁
Islam is the most evil terrorist organization in the world
It must be eliminated
And why is that?
One of the religious parties did vote for it.
Probably because it threatens Trump’s peace deal.
Yes, but American support for Israel should not depend on support for his awful deal.
That’s not how Trump rolls. You are either with him or against him. He’s always been like that.
And that’s a problem. It’s a very bad thing about him.
I agree,
This is exactly the sort of example that shows Netanyahu actually is a good peace leader.
This bill both needed to be stopped and Trump/Vance needed to see that it was contrary to the PM.
By making this statement Netanyahu stopped catastrophic policy, and a break with the United States.
I am sorry but the bill would have made Israel a pariah sate, and made Jews a minority in their own country.
Israelis who are trying to push Israel into pariah state status should observe North Korea for what that looks like and acknowledge exactly how interconnected the global economy is.
Stop using the word “annex.” The so-called West Bank is Israeli territory. You can’t annex your own territory. The Palestinians have a semi-autonomous government there, but the sovereign over the area is Israel. The headline correctly states the Knesset voted to “Exert Israel’s Sovereignty Over West Bank.” Israel has suspended its sovereignty in the West Bank, it did not surrender it. Reasserting sovereignty and “annexing” are not the same things. “Annexing” entails adding land that isn’t yet a part of the territory of the sovereign asserting its control. Israel didn’t “occupy” the West Bank following the Six Day War for the same reason – a state doesn’t “occupy” its own territory. “Occupation” is something a state does to land that belongs to, or did belong to, another sovereign (like the occupation of Berlin, or of France by Germany during WW II – or like Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank during the interim between 1948 and 1967).
I’m sorry, but none of this is true. Judaea, Benjamin, and Samaria are not part of the State of Israel. They never have been. They should have been annexed in 1967, but Israel deliberately chose to annex only the eastern part of Jerusalem, and the Latrun salient. Later, in 1981, it annexed the Golan Heights. The rest of the “territories” are not Israel, and Israel has no sovereignty there. That’s why the prevailing law in those areas is Jordanian law, not Israeli law. The bill would extend Israeli law to those areas, thereby making them part of Israel; but Netanyahu opposes it and will make sure it fails, and they will remain outside the state’s boundaries. None of this is a matter of “international law”, it’s purely a matter of Israeli law.
The reason Israeli rule in the “territories” is not technically occupation is NOT because they’re under Israeli sovereignty, but because they’re not part of any country. They were never part of Jordan or Israel, so they can’t be occupied. The correct term is “administered”. Israel is administering these areas, but does not own them until the Knesset decides that it does.