In a statement issued Wednesday evening, the Turkish Foreign Ministry considered the Israeli Knesset's attempts to annex the occupied West Bank a violation of international law, stressing that the West Bank is Palestinian territory.
The statement reiterated Turkey's "defense of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and support for efforts aimed at establishing a geographically unified, independent, and sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital."
Earlier today, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) approved, in preliminary reading, a bill to annex the occupied West Bank and another to annex the Ma'ale Adumim settlement on Palestinian land east of occupied Jerusalem.
The Knesset said on its website: "The preliminary reading of the bill to apply the sovereignty of the State of Israel (annexation) to the territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) was approved."
He explained that 25 members of the Knesset (out of 120 members) supported the bill, which was submitted by the leader of the right-wing "Noam" party, Avi Maoz, while 24 members opposed it.
Regarding the Ma'ale Adumim settlement, Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the bill submitted by Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman to annex the settlement passed its preliminary reading with 32 members in favor and 9 opposed.
Ma'ale Adumim is located east of occupied Jerusalem and is one of the largest settlements in the occupied West Bank. Its annexation would isolate East Jerusalem from its eastern Palestinian surroundings and divide the West Bank into two parts.
Israel's moves to annex the West Bank have escalated in parallel with a genocidal war waged against the Gaza Strip, with US support, for two years since October 8, 2023.
This genocide left 68,234 Palestinian martyrs and 170,373 injured, most of them children and women, and caused the destruction of 90 percent of civilian infrastructure.
