Israeli Security Minister Says All West Bank “Belongs to Israel”

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said Friday that the three administrative areas of the occupied West Bank “belong to Israel,” contradicting the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Oslo Accords.

“There is no difference between Areas A, B and C. All the land is ours. This is our country,” Ben-Gvir said.

Under the Oslo II Accord of 1995, the West Bank was divided into three areas: Area A under full Palestinian control, Area B under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control, and Area C, comprising approximately 60% of the territory, under full Israeli control. Ben-Gvir’s statement contradicts both the Oslo framework and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The minister threatened to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and redouble efforts to impose the forced displacement of Palestinians from both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, conditioning these actions on his eventual arrival to the post of Defense Minister.

On how to provide additional forces, Ben-Gvir said: “The more you allow soldiers to shoot and use force, the fewer personnel you need.” He promised to eliminate existing restrictions to normalize these actions and added that “police rules of engagement are much more lenient than those of the army,” openly celebrating the use of lethal fire against the Palestinian population.

Amid internal Zionist political disputes, Ben-Gvir reproached Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arguing that he “did not want it enough,” blaming him for not having pushed more aggressively for policies of mass expulsion of Palestinians. These internal disputes and the hardening of racist discourse respond to electoral desperation ahead of the Knesset elections scheduled for October 27, where polls reflect a marked decline in support for the governing coalition amid the opposition’s advance.

International organizations, including the UN, have rejected Israel’s expansionist actions, which they say contradict signed multilateral agreements and constitute a permanent breach of the territorial limits assigned to the colonialist entity since its entry into Palestine. Experts denounce that Israel’s actions consolidate an inadmissible apartheid, burying the aspirations of justice, self-determination and freedom of Palestinian families in their own homeland.

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