By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Alexander Cornwell
CAIRO/TEL AVIV (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned that moves by Israel’s parliament toward the annexation of the West Bank could threaten President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza, which has yielded a shaky ceasefire so far.
“I mean, that’s a vote in the – yeah, that’s a vote in the Knesset, but obviously I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now, and we think it’s potentially threatening to the peace deal,” Rubio told reporters late on Wednesday before leaving for Israel.
Rubio’s visit is the latest by a senior U.S. official seeking to keep alive the brittle truce between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas after two years of devastating war that has upended the Middle East.
Repeated bouts of gunfire and explosions have shaken the deal and the two sides have traded blame for violations of its first phase, which has seen the return of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a handover of bodies of some deceased hostages, and a partial pullout of Israeli troops.
HEAVY SHOOTING, SHELLING OVERNIGHT
Witnesses reported almost constant heavy gunfire and tank shelling overnight in eastern areas of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and also east of Gaza City in the north of the Palestinian enclave.
“Gunfire and explosions almost didn’t stop until the morning, my three children woke up and asked me if the war had come back,” said Mohammad Abu Mansour, 40, a farmer living in central Gaza Strip. “When is this all going to end and we regain our normal lives without fears?” he said via a chat app.
The U.S. State Department said Rubio was visiting Israel to support the implementation of Trump’s 20-point plan to end Gaza’s war and pave the way towards reconstruction, stable governance and possible steps towards Palestinian statehood.
He was preceded by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. Vance was due to meet Defence Minister Israel Katz and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer on Thursday before departing.
WEST BANK ANNEXATION MOVE BY ISRAELI PARLIAMENT
A bill applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation of land that Palestinians want for an independent state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament on Wednesday.
There are around 700,000 Jewish settlers living in settlements across the West Bank. The United Nations and much of the international community consider the settlements illegal under international law.
Israel’s government cites biblical and historical connections to the West Bank, territory that it regards as disputed, and opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The settlements are an explosive issue that has for decades been seen as a major obstacle to Middle East peace.
The vote was the first of four needed to pass the law and coincided with Vance’s visit to Israel, a month after Trump said that he would not allow Israel to annex the territory it took in the 1967 Middle East war.
Netanyahu’s Likud party did not support the legislation, which was put forward by lawmakers outside his ruling coalition and passed by a vote of 25-24 out of 120 lawmakers.
Netanyahu’s government had been considering annexation as a response to a string of major Western allies recognising a Palestinian state to put pressure on Israel to stop its war in Gaza, but appeared to scrap the move after Trump objected.
Settlement building has been expanding rapidly since 2022 when Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israeli history with ultra-nationalists seeking annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza as coalition partners, came to power.
The United Arab Emirates, the most prominent Arab country to forge ties with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords brokered by Trump during his first term in office, has warned that annexing the West Bank was a red line for the Gulf state.
(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elimam in Dubai; Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Kate Mayberry and Mark Heinrich)
Comments