The annexation of the West Bank, or parts thereof, to Israel has been considered by Israeli politicians since the area was captured and occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Annexation of the Jordan Valley has been advocated by some Israeli politicians since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, most notably with the Allon Plan and the 2020 Trump peace plan.

East Jerusalem was the first part of the West Bank to be annexed; it was de facto annexed following its occupation by Israel in 1967, and de jure annexed following the 1980 Jerusalem Law. The annexation of the Jordan Valley, first proposed in the 1967 Allon Plan, was announced by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September 2019 as his plan, subject to the outcome of the September 2019 Israeli legislative election. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu's September 2019 annexation proposal included Jericho becoming a Palestinian enclave.

Israeli law has been applied to Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank, leading to a system of "enclave law" and claims of "creeping annexation". Annexation of the West Bank would be condemned as illegal by the United Nations and would break international law.

In August of 2026, Israel initiated a transfer of power in the West Bank to the civilian Israeli Police, which many Palestinian analysts see as a move towards an illegal annexation of the West Bank and as a violation of International law.

Proposals Annexation of Israeli settlements

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his right-wing Likud party do not have a coherent stance on the status of the West Bank. In 2009, Netanyahu endorsed the two-state solution, but before the April 2019 Israeli legislative election, he stated his intention of unilaterally annexing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. However, since this was a throwaway remark made without addressing the international opposition to such an action, it is unclear whether Netanyahu intended to follow through. On 16 September 2019, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio, Netanyahu said "I intend to extend sovereignty on all the settlements and the (settlement) blocs," including "sites that have security importance or are important to Israel's heritage," including the settlements in Hebron.

The application of Israeli law in the West Bank settlements has been described by commentators as "creeping annexation".Is a New Israeli Bill Creeping Annexation of West Bank?, Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, 5 September 2017Times of Israel, Plan to apply Israeli law in West Bank: Equal rights or 'creeping annexation'?

Annexation of the Jordan Valley

According to B'Tselem, 65,000 Palestinians and about 11,000 Israeli settlers live in the area.

1967 Allon Plan

The Allon Plan was a plan to partition the West Bank between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, create a Druze state in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and return most of the Sinai Peninsula to Arab control. The plan was drafted by Israeli Minister Yigal Allon shortly after the Six-Day War in June 1967. The broad aim of the plan was to annex most of the Jordan Valley from the river to the eastern slopes of the West Bank hill ridge, East Jerusalem, and the Etzion bloc, to Israel. The remaining parts of the West Bank, containing most of the Palestinian population, were to become Palestinian autonomous territory, or would return to Jordan, including a corridor to Jordan through Jericho. The Jordanian King Hussein rejected the plan. Allon died in 1980, and the following year the Israeli government passed the Golan Heights Law, effectively annexing most of the governorate.Avi Shlaim, 2001, The Iron Wall: "Victory in the Six-Day War marked the beginning of a new era in Israel's history – an era of uncertainty. The victory reopened the old question about the territorial aims of Zionism...The question was what to do with these territories, and to this question there was no simple answer... On 26 July he [Allon] submitted to the cabinet a plan that was to bear his name [The Allon Plan]. It called for incorporating in Israel the following areas: a strip of land ten to fifteen kilometers wide along the Jordan River; most of the Judean desert along the Dead Sea; and a substantial area around Greater Jerusalem, including the Latrun salient. Designed to include as few Arabs as possible in the area claimed for Israel, the plan envisaged building permanent settlements and army bases in these areas. Finally, it called for opening negotiations with local leaders on turning the remaining parts of the West Bank into an autonomous region that would be economically linked to Israel. The cabinet discussed Allon's plan but neither adopted nor rejected it."Kenneth W. Stein, 1999, Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace: "Submitted to several Israeli Cabinets for approval but not officially endorsed, the Allon Plan was initially presented in July 1967. The plan’s core assumptions included defensible borders as defined by Israel, a return of the densely populated areas to a 'Jordanian-Palestinian state' with Israel retaining control of the Jordan Rift Valley and mountain ridges to the west from Nablus to Hebron. Under the plan, Israel would assert and sustain military presence over the West Bank up to the Jordan River, the West Bank would be demilitarized, the Palestinians would be provided self-administration in an autonomous or semiautonomous region, and Israel would remain in full control over a united Jerusalem, with perhaps a Jordanian status in the Muslim quarter of the Old City. Israeli leaders then ruled out the possibility of incorporating the West Bank Palestinian population into a greater Israel because it would have dramatically changed the states Jewish demographic orientation. When the Allon Plan was officially offered to the king [of Jordan] in cordial and secret talks in September 1968, Hussein rejected it because he felt it 'infringed on Jordanian sovereignty.' Nonetheless, the Allon Plan served as a basis for the Labor Party election platforms in 1974, 1977, 1981, 1984, and 1987. The concept of providing autonomy or self-administration for the Palestinians was offered by Israeli Prime Minister Begin to Sadat in December 1977 and enshrined in both the September 1978 Camp David and the September 1993 Oslo Accords."Yehudit Auerbach, 1991, Journal of Conflict Resolution, "Attitudes to an Existence Conflict: Allon and Peres on the Palestinian Issue, 1967–1987": "The [Allon] plan called for a political settlement of the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, based on the following themes: Israel would not return to the June 4, 1967 borders; the Jordan River would be Israel's defense border; Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, would remain united; and a solution to the Palestinian problem would be found as part of a peace agreement with Jordan. This plan was never officially adopted by Israel's government, although it has never been rejected either. Moreover, it shaped, to a great extent, Israel's settlement policy in the West Bank and Gaza during the years from 1967 to 1977."

2019 Netanyahu Plan

On 10 September 2019, shortly before the Israeli legislative elections, Netanyahu announced his government's plan to annex the Jordan Valley, if it won the election. He also reaffirmed his previous pledge to annex all Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank, but said such a move would not be made before publication of the Trump peace plan and consultations with President Donald Trump. According to Peace Now, the proposal includes 30 settlements with 12,778 settlers, 18 illegal outposts, 15 Area A and B communities, including 44,175 Palestinians planned to remain under the nominal autonomous rule of the Palestinian Authority, surrounded by annexed territory with access roads, described by Peace Now as "..alarmingly similar to the Bantustan formula in former Apartheid South Africa" and 48 shepherding communities in Area C including 8,775 Palestinians. The area to be annexed is about 22% of the West Bank, 90% of which is in Area C and 20% of the land is Palestinian-owned; the map that Netanyahu displayed of the area to be annexed had several errors, incorrectly noting the location of several settlements and omitting Palestinian villages. Netanyahu's map is only a slightly revised version of the Allon Plan map, with the key difference being that the Palestinians are no longer offered access to the international border with Jordan. Netanyahu said that he had received a green light from the United States' Donald Trump administration. The administration said that there had been no change in United States policy.

The next day, there was international condemnation of the proposal from Palestinians, the Arab league, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, the UK and the UN, the latter stating "... that any Israeli move to impose its administration over the Palestinian territory would be illegal under international law." Several Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum and Hebrew media outlets described this announcement as a political stunt for votes. Most notably, Moshe Ya'alon, a Knesset Member from the Blue and White party, said that in 2014 Netanyahu agreed in principle to evacuate Jordan Valley settlements. In 2014 Ya'alon was in Netanyahu's Likud Party, serving under Netanyahu as the Minister of Defense. On 13 August 2020, Netanyahu agreed to suspend the plan after signing the Israel–United Arab Emirates peace agreement, brokered by the United States.

Annexation of Area C

The West Bank is divided into Area A, B, and C. Area C contains 60% of the West Bank's land area and all Israeli settlements. As of 2013, OCHA estimated that approximately 300,000 Palestinians lived in Area C, compared to an estimated 2.8 million residing in Areas A and B as of 2019. The Jewish Home party's official position is in support of annexing Area C alone, although some of its MKs support annexation of the entire West Bank. Leading up to the April 2019 elections, the New Right party, led by Naftali Bennett, Israeli foreign minister and Ayelet Shaked, justice minister, advocated for the unilateral annexation of Area C. Bennett estimates that his plan would involve offering Israeli citizenship to some 80,000 Palestinians living in Area C, which contradicts the UN estimate of 297,000 Palestinians in Area C.

Annexation of the entire West Bank Caroline Glick, a New Right candidate in the April 2019 Knesset elections, supports annexation of the entire West Bank. Glick supports an application process for Israeli citizenship to Palestinians living in annexed areas, and anticipates that not all Palestinians would desire Israeli citizenship or be eligible.

Annex according to 2020 Trump peace plan

In April 2020 Barak Ravid, writing in Axios, cited a "senior U.S. official" as saying that any Israeli annexations must come "in the context of an offer to the Palestinians to achieve statehood based upon specific terms, conditions, territorial dimensions and generous economic support." and that "We are prepared to recognize Israeli actions to extend Israeli sovereignty over areas of the West Bank in the context of the Government of Israel agreeing to negotiate with the Palestinians along the lines set forth in President Trump's vision." U.S. Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman told Netanyahu's aides at a meeting of the U.S.-Israeli mapping committee that is examining potential areas that could be annexed, that "the U.S. wants to implement a peace plan, not an annexation plan".

On 28 May 2020, Netanyahu said he was committed to annexing parts of the West Bank in July once a joint Israeli-U.S. team completes mapping the exact territory based on the conceptual map released by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. However, the July 2020 annexation plan was later pushed back.

Movements towards annexation

2020