US govt warns against annexing West Bank

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday that the United States has warned that annexing the West Bank would lead to an "immediate crisis" with President Donald Trump's administration.

Lieberman sought to push back against those in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition calling for a declaration of Israeli sovereignty over all or part of the occupied territory.

He said annexation would provoke a crisis with Washington and result in steep costs for the Israeli government since it would be required to provide services to Palestinians in the West Bank.

"We have received a very clear, direct message from the United States stating that the application of Israeli law in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) would provoke an immediate crisis with the new administration," Lieberman said before a parliamentary committee.

Some 2.6 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.

The latest call for annexation came on Sunday, when lawmaker Miki Zohar from Netanyahu's Likud party said in a television interview that "the two-state solution is dead".

Zohar advocated a single state, but said that Palestinians in the West Bank should not be allowed to vote in Israeli parliamentary elections.

Others have made similar calls, including Education Minister Naftali Bennett who heads the religious nationalist Jewish Home party.

In his comments yesterday, Lieberman also laid out an economic argument against annexation, saying Israel immediately "will be required to spend 20 billion shekels" on various social services.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian was killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Israeli army said yesterday. The man, identified by Israeli police as 31-year-old Bassel al-Aaraj, was shot dead after opening fire on soldiers who came to arrest him at his home on Sunday night.