US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Israel would lose Washington’s backing should the country go ahead with the annexation of the occupied West Bank.
“It won’t happen,” Trump told US outlet Time Magazine, saying he had given his word to Arab leaders that the territory — which is considered illegally occupied under international law — will not be annexed, reports Deutsche Welle.
“Israel would lose all of its support from the US if that happened,” Trump added.
The US leader also described the conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that led to the latter agreeing to the ceasefire deal in Gaza.
“I told (Netanyahu): You can’t fight the world,” Trump said.
“I stopped him, because he would have just kept going,” the US president stressed.
Trump also said he plans to visit Gaza at some point.
Earlier, US Vice President JD Vance spoke upon his departure from Israel, saying a bill presented in Israeli parliament on annexing the occupied territory constituted “an insult.”
Israeli lawmakers voted Wednesday to advance two bills on annexing the occupied West Bank, barely a week after President Donald Trump pushed through a deal aimed at ending a two-year Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that was retaliation for a Hamas attack.
“I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we can be supportive of right now,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said of annexation as he boarded his plane for a visit to Israel.
Annexation moves are “threatening for the peace deal,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday there had been little improvement in the amount of aid going into Gaza since a ceasefire took hold — and no observable reduction in hunger.
“The situation still remains catastrophic because what’s entering is not enough,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, lamenting that “there is no dent in hunger because there is not enough food.”
