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A bill imposing Israeli sovereignty on the occupied West Bank would be a flagrant violation of international law, according to Israel’s parliament’s decision to vote to approve it.

In the first of four necessary votes to pass the bill into law, lawmakers in the 120-seat Knesset voted 25-24 on Tuesday to advance it in the face of opposition from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party.

The bill was approved in a preliminary reading, according to a Knesset statement that referenced Judea and Samaria (West Bank) as the subject of the bill’s application of the State of Israel’s sovereignty. The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will then examine it for further discussion.

The vote was held during US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel to bolster the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, which came one month after US President Donald Trump said he would not allow Israel to annex the occupied West Bank.

The votes, according to Likud, are “an additional provocation by the opposition intended to harm our relations with the United States,” Likud said in a statement.

True sovereignty will be achieved through diligent work on the ground, the statement declared. “Not a showy law for the record, but rather.

According to UN resolutions, an annexation of the occupied West Bank would effectively eliminate the possibility of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Voting in the Likud was decisive by the party.

The bill was supported by some members of Netanyahu’s coalition, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism faction and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party.

In a post on X, Smotrich wrote, “The people have spoken.

In accordance with biblical definitions for the West Bank, he said, “The time has come to apply full sovereignty to all the territories of Judea and Samaria, the inheritance of our forefathers, and to promote peace agreements in exchange for peace with our neighbours, from a position of strength.”

The far-right Noam Party, which does not belong to the governing coalition, is the leader of the bill, Avi Maoz.

Most Likud lawmakers voted abstained or did not show up for the vote, but Yuli Edelstein, a member, defied Netanyahu and cast the decisive vote in favor of the bill.

In a post on X, he wrote, “At this very moment, Israeli sovereignty over our homeland is the order of the day.”

A second bill from an opposition party that called for the Maale Adumim settlement to be annexated also got passed.

The international community had warned that a significant settlement project between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank would undermine the viability of a future Palestinian state.

“Brutal violation of international law”

Hamas and Jordan swiftly condemned the votes.

The Palestinian organization claimed in a statement that the bills show “the colonial occupation’s ugly face.”

The organization claims that the occupation’s desperate attempts to annex West Bank property are unfounded and unlawful.

The Knesset’s preliminary approval of the two draft laws was “condemned in the strongest terms,” according to Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates.

The statement on X reads, “This is regarded as a flagrant violation of international law, an undermining of the two-state solution, and an infringement on the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent, sovereign state based on the borders of June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital,” the statement read.

The Ministry put forth the claim that Israel is not a sovereign state in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, more than 700,000 Israelis reside in illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

International law prohibits all of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there should be ended as soon as possible, according to the UN’s principal court in 2024.

Members of Netanyahu’s coalition have been asking for Israel to officially annex some of the occupied West Bank for years, and Netanyahu’s government had been considering doing so in response to several of its Western allies’ acceptance of a Palestinian state in September.

After Trump made it clear that such a move would be unacceptable, it had started to appear to back away from the plans.

Rhetorical gesture:

Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg claimed that the vote was a part of the Knesset’s “primarily performative” criticism of Netanyahu over the Gaza ceasefire agreement in response to accusations that the US and Middle Eastern powers had forced Israel to comply with it.

The Knesset passed the first stage of a bill today that proposes imposing Israeli control over the West Bank, which is technically meant to resemble an annexation. However, he claimed that this was a rhetorical gesture.

The United Nations court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has said Israel has an obligation to ensure the “basic needs” of the population in Gaza are met.

The panel of 11 judges said on Wednesday that Israel is forced to support the relief efforts provided by the United Nations in the bombarded Gaza Strip and its entities.

It includes UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which Israel has banned from operating in Israel after accusing some of its staff of taking part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack.

As part of its findings, the ICJ said Israel has failed to show evidence that UNRWA also worked for Hamas as it claimed.

“The court finds that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA’s employees are ‘ members of Hamas … or other terrorist factions'”, said ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa.

Advisory opinions of the ICJ, also known as the world court, carry legal and political weight, but they are not binding, and the court has no enforcement power.

In April, lawyers for the United Nations and Palestinian representatives at the ICJ accused Israel of breaking international law by refusing to let aid into Gaza between March and May.

Since then, some humanitarian aid has been allowed in, but UN officials say the relief is nowhere near what is needed to ease a humanitarian disaster and an Israeli-induced famine in parts of the enclave.

The 20-point ceasefire plan mediated by the US earlier this month allows for 600 trucks of aid a day into Gaza. Israel has previously accused Hamas – without providing evidence – of stealing food delivered into the enclave, which the group strongly denies.

Israel has claimed the aid restriction, still in place despite provisions in the ceasefire stipulating that aid must enter Gaza at scale, was to put pressure on the group.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, slammed the ICJ’s advisory opinion as “shameful”, claiming UN institutions are “breeding grounds for terrorists”.

Israel did not take part in the proceedings, but it did submit its legal position in writing. In April, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar dismissed the hearings as a “circus” and said the court was being politicised.

Iwasawa said the court “rejects the argument that the request abuses and weaponises the international judicial process”.

Advisory ‘ very important ‘

On the eve of the ICJ ruling, Abeer Etefa, Middle East spokesperson for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), said 530 of the organisation’s trucks had crossed into Gaza since the ceasefire.

Those trucks had delivered more than 6, 700 tonnes of food, which she said was “enough for close to half a million people for two weeks”.

Etefa said about 750 tonnes a day were now coming through, which, although more than before the ceasefire, remains well below WFP’s target of about 2, 000 tonnes daily.

The ICJ said that Israel, as an occupying power, was under an obligation “to ensure the basic needs of the local population, including the supplies essential for their survival”.

At the same time, Israel was “also under a negative obligation not to impede the provision of these supplies”, the court said.

The court also recalled the obligation under international law not to use starvation as a method of warfare.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from The Hague, said the advisory opinion is still seen as “very important” because the ICJ is the primary legal body of the UN.

“Even if Israel ignores it, as it’s done time and time again, all the UN countries are obliged to follow up on this court’s advice”, Vaessen said. “Even if Israel is ignoring it now, it will hang over the head of Israel from this moment on”.

The UN General Assembly had asked the ICJ to clarify Israel’s obligations, as an occupying power, towards the UN and other bodies, “including to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival” of Palestinians.

ICJ judges heard a week of evidence in April from dozens of nations and organisations, much of which revolved around the status of UNRWA.

The ICJ at the time noted that UNRWA “cannot be replaced on short notice without a proper transition plan”.

Palestinian official Ammar Hijazi told the ICJ judges during the April hearings that Israel was blocking aid as a “weapon of war” and triggering starvation in Gaza.

Wednesday’s case was separate from the others Israel faces under international law over its assault in Gaza.

In July 2024, the ICJ issued another advisory opinion stating that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory was “unlawful” and must end as soon as possible.