Annexation

Dalia Hatuqa. (Courtesy)

PODCAST: Where is the PA as Israel annexes the West Bank?

Dalia Hatuqa unpacks the bureaucratic transformation of Israel’s control over the occupied territory, and the Palestinian Authority’s inability to confront it.

By +972 Magazine February 27, 2026

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a press conference with Israeli settler leaders, at the Finiance Ministry, in Jerusalem, September 3, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Has Israel crossed the annexation threshold in the West Bank?

Six ‘game-changing’ recent cabinet decisions may push the occupation past a tipping point toward permanent Israeli rule, says Yesh Din director Ziv Stahl.

By Dikla Taylor-Sheinman February 18, 2026

Tawfiq Bani Odeh, a resident of the Palestinian village of Atuf, with his flock of sheep on Mount Tammun in the northern Jordan Valley, January 23, 2026. (Oren Ziv)

Israel’s new separation wall will sever Jordan Valley from rest of West Bank

The army is issuing evacuation orders and seizing land to prepare a massive barrier — part of a wider project to annex the Palestinian ‘breadbasket.’

By Oren Ziv February 16, 2026

Latest

Palestinian residents and activists gather for a screening of "Coexistence my Ass!" in late December. (Mohanad Qufisha)

In Hebron’s hyper-militarized Old City, a Palestinian cinema opens its doors

The city's first movie theater in nearly a century is defying Israeli movement restrictions and settler attacks to screen political films for locals and activists.

By Basel Adra February 2, 2026

Graffiti sprayed on ancient archeological artifacts, in Sebastia, near the West Bank city of Nablus, May 12, 2025. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Israel preparing largest ever act of ‘archeological cleansing’ in West Bank

Subordinating scientific value to colonial expansion, Israeli archeologists are putting up no resistance as the state moves to expropriate swaths of Sebastia.

By Alon Arad December 11, 2025

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends a press conference announcing his plans to approve more than 3,000 housing units in the E1 settlement project between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, August 14, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

As the world recognizes a Palestinian state, Israel’s E1 plan moves to bury it

The long-frozen settlement project would sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank, fragment Palestinian communities, and advance permanent annexation.

By Shatha Yaish September 12, 2025

Bulldozers operated by Israeli settlers and soldiers uproot olive trees near the village of Al-Mughayyir, in the occupied West Bank, August 23, 2025. (Avishay Mohar/Activestills)

Israeli army, settlers unite in collective punishment of Al-Mughayyir

The siege of the West Bank village and destruction of its olive groves were a joint exercise in intimidation and re-engineering of Palestinian space.

By Oren Ziv and Shatha Yaish August 27, 2025

Rafi Greenberg, Tel Aviv, June 2024. (Oren Ziv)

‘It comes with the territory’: How Israel’s archaeologists legitimize annexation

Weaponizing antiquities is part of Israel's colonial legacy, says Rafi Greenberg, whose colleagues have largely remained silent about Gaza's destruction.

By Dikla Taylor-Sheinman July 1, 2025

Palestinians wait at closed Israeli gates at the entrance to Hebron, in the West Bank, June 14, 2025. (Mosab Shawer)

With Iran war as pretext, Israel suffocates the West Bank

After striking Tehran, the army closed hundreds of gates to seal Palestinians inside towns and strand them on roads — proof of annexation in all but name.

By Shatha Yaish June 19, 2025

Community members in Khirbet Samra loading their flock into trucks before their departure on Saturday, March 1, 2025. (Dikla Taylor-Sheinman)

Israeli settler violence is rapidly emptying Jordan Valley of Palestinians

Khirbet Samra is one of the last Palestinian shepherding communities in the West Bank’s eastern flank. State-backed settler militias are driving them out.

By Dikla Taylor-Sheinman and Georgia Gee March 19, 2025

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. president Donald Trump at the White House in Washington DC, March 5, 2018. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Trump’s unfinished business for ‘Greater Israel’

From annexation to UNRWA, Trump’s Israel advisors should be taken at their word — and Democrats won’t stand in their way, says Lara Friedman.

By Jonathan Adler November 13, 2024

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich arrives at a government conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, September 27, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine

The internalization of the far-right minister's 'Decisive Plan' is evident in the popular support for a new ultimatum for Gaza: emigration or annihilation.

By Orly Noy November 10, 2023

Yochai Damri, head of the Mount Hebron Regional Council, and Home Front Maj. Gen. Uri Gordin, visit the remains of the ancient Jewish village of Susiya, where a Palestinian village of the same name now exists, in the southern occupied West Bank, December 15, 2021. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Annexation in the name of archeology

Armed with huge budgets, far-right Israeli ministers are pushing ahead with plans to displace Palestinians under the guise of safeguarding heritage sites.

By Alon Arad and Talya Ezrahi August 1, 2023