PA responds to Smotrich on West Bank annexation: 2025 will be the year of Palestinian statehood

A spokesman for PA President Mahmoud Abbas is quoted as slamming Foreign Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s assertion that Israel will apply sovereignty to West Bank settlements in 2025, asserting that, in fact, next year will “be the year of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”

Earlier, the far-right minister claimed that Donald Trump’s election as the 47th president of the United States provides Israel with an “important opportunity” to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria.”

Hebrew media reports that Abbas spokesman and PA Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudeineh decried Smotrich’s “dangerous annexation plan” and calls on the international community to “force Israel to abandon these dangerous measures.”

He also calls for countries to break diplomatic ties with Israel and suspend its United Nations membership, according to the reports.