Since the outbreak of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October 2023, the smoke and rubble of the Gaza Strip have captured the world’s attention. However, as the Gaza war entered a phase of stalemate and attrition marked by a ceasefire agreement in 2025, Israel’s strategic focus is undergoing a silent yet profoundly significant shift—from the “destruction and reshaping” of Gaza to the “consolidation and annexation” of the West Bank. This shift is not an impulsive move but a systematic project, long in the making, aimed at unilaterally and permanently redrawing the geopolitical map of the Israeli-Palestinian issue by creating “established facts.”
I. Strategic Pivot: Clear Intentions from ‘Post-War Arrangements’ to ‘Permanent Control’
Israel’s actions in Gaza have long been framed within the narrative of “counter-terrorism self-defense” and “destroying Hamas’s military capabilities.” However, an independent investigation report released by the United Nations in September 2025 peeled back a layer of this strategic veil. The report clearly stated that the Israeli government has demonstrated a clear intent to establish permanent control over the Gaza Strip while simultaneously working to ensure a Jewish demographic majority in the occupied West Bank. This official report connects Israel’s recent series of actions into a clear strategic thread: after achieving a form of long-term security dominance in Gaza through military operations, immediately channel resources and political capital into the substantive annexation process of the West Bank.
The urgency of this strategic pivot became evident in a series of diplomatic events in the autumn of 2025. At that time, a new wave of recognitions of Palestinian statehood emerged from several Western countries, including the UK, Canada, and Australia. In direct response, it was revealed that there were motions within the Israeli government to annex part or even all of the West Bank. This indicates that even the most formal international support for the “two-state solution” is seen by hardliners in Israel’s ruling coalition as a strategic threat that must be countered with more radical land annexation actions.
II. Mode of Encroachment: Settlements as the Core Engine and Territorial Fragmenter
The encroachment on the West Bank is primarily driven by two interrelated “engines”: legislative annexation and settlement expansion. Both serve a common goal: to fragment Palestinian territory physically and legally, rendering it incapable of being a viable, contiguous modern state.
1. Legislative Probing and Legal ‘Window-Breaking’
In October 2025, the Israeli Knesset passed a bill in a preliminary vote aimed at extending Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank. Although the bill is still far from becoming formal law and was once dismissed by the Prime Minister’s Office as opposition “political stunts,” its symbolic meaning and probing nature are extremely dangerous. It acts like a pushed-open “legal window,” testing domestic political tolerance and the international community’s reaction threshold, paving the way for future formal annexation. The Palestinian condemnation hit the mark: this is an illegal attempt to “thoroughly legalize” annexation.
2. Settlement Expansion: Systematic, Unprecedented-Scale Creation of ‘Established Facts’
Compared to legislative probing, the physical expansion of settlements is a more direct and efficient tool of encroachment. On December 21, 2025, the Israeli cabinet approved a highly provocative proposal: to establish 19 new Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made no attempt to conceal its purpose in his statement: this move aims to “consolidate control over Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.” He further disclosed that the total number of settlements planned by the current government over the past three years has reached 69, a pace he described as “unprecedented.”
Analysis by the Israeli NGO “Peace Now” reveals the pernicious nature of this wave of expansion: some new settlements will be deliberately located in areas where Israel has previously had no presence, while others will be built in densely populated Palestinian areas. This siting strategy is doubly destructive: on one hand, it acts like a “wedge” driven into the heart of Palestinian communities, severing territorial continuity; on the other hand, by competing with Palestinians for living space and resources, it systematically “destroys Palestinian hope for existence.” Statistics show that before the current government took office at the end of 2022, 141 settlements had been built in the West Bank over the preceding 55 years. The quantity planned by this government alone in three years, if completed, would increase the total number of settlements by nearly 50%. This is no longer the piecemeal encroachment of the past but a strategic general offensive aimed at triggering a qualitative change through quantitative accumulation, fundamentally altering the West Bank’s demographic structure and geographical landscape.
III. International Reaction and America’s Contradictory Role
Israel’s radical policies in the West Bank have drawn near-universal strong condemnation from the international community. From the joint statements of 15 Arab and Islamic countries including Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, along with the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to criticism from Western powers like the EU, UK, and Germany, the core arguments are highly consistent: these actions constitute a blatant violation of international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, severely undermine the foundations of the “two-state solution,” and pose a direct threat to regional peace and security. The UN Secretary-General has also repeatedly called on Israel to immediately halt settlement construction.
However, the role of the United States, the most influential external actor regarding Israel, is fraught with contradictions and ambiguity, creating a crucial strategic window for Israel’s actions. In September 2025, U.S. President Trump, during meetings with multiple Arab and Islamic leaders, publicly promised “not to allow Israel to annex the West Bank.” To secure Arab support for his proposed “21-point Middle East peace plan,” the U.S. even listed “Israel not annexing the West Bank” as a precondition.
But a significant temperature gap exists between America’s actual policy and its verbal promises. First, the Trump administration firmly opposed international recognition of a Palestinian state, calling it “rewarding Hamas,” which weakened the international moral and political pressure constraining Israel. Second, and most crucially, in subsequent specific plans jointly proposed by the U.S. and Israel, core issues like the status of the West Bank were handled with strategies of “avoidance or ambiguity.” For instance, in the “Gaza Peace Plan” announced after Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu in late September 2025, red lines drawn by the Israeli far-right, such as “non-acceptance of a Palestinian state” and “insistence on annexing the West Bank,” were largely preserved or sidestepped. This deliberate “strategic ambiguity” amounts to tacit approval of Israel’s settlement expansion, allowing ministers like Smotrich and other far-right figures to accelerate their agenda without facing substantive U.S. constraints.
IV. Domestic Drivers and the Fuse for Future Conflict
Israel’s frenzied encroachment on the West Bank is rooted in its complex domestic political ecology. Netanyahu’s ruling coalition relies on several far-right parties to maintain its majority. These parties view settlement expansion and West Bank annexation as core ideology and political mission. Li Zixin, Assistant Researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, points out that Netanyahu’s public opposition to the Knesset annexation bill resembles more of a “tactical statement.” His real aim is twofold: on one hand, to appease and placate the far-right forces within the coalition by indulging in substantive settlement expansion at the cabinet level (like approving 19 new settlements), thereby maintaining coalition stability; on the other hand, to demonstrate a posture of “restraint” to the United States by opposing the early-stage parliamentary bill, to maintain the “credibility” of the Gaza ceasefire framework and ensure continued American support. This is a high-wire political act, both skillful and dangerous, paid for by the continuous loss of Palestinian territory and the utter extinction of peace hopes.
This domestically-driven policy of encroachment is laying the fuse for larger-scale future conflicts. The international community widely warns that settlement expansion not only violates international law but also exacerbates local tensions, further eroding the possibility of peace. Expert analysis indicates that if the annexation bill were ultimately passed, it would severely impact the fragile Gaza ceasefire agreement, undermine the basis for regional state support of the current peace framework, potentially triggering more armed conflict, leading to ceasefire breakdown and broader geopolitical turmoil. As the living space for West Bank Palestinians is increasingly squeezed, resistance sentiment and violent incidents will inevitably rise in tandem. The forceful responses from Israeli settlers and the military will create a vicious cycle of violence, turning the entire West Bank into a powder keg ready to explode at any moment.
Conclusion: Marching Toward Irreversible Unilateralism
In summary, Israel’s eagerness to shift its strategic focus to the West Bank before the Gaza conflict is fully resolved is no coincidence. This is a strategic operation, packaged in narratives of “security” and “existence,” driven by domestic far-right ideology, employing systematic settlement expansion as its primary means, and aimed at unilaterally and permanently resolving the Israeli-Palestinian territorial issue by creating overwhelming “established facts.” Its ultimate goal, as frankly stated by its Finance Minister, is to “prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” making the “two-state solution” based on the 1967 borders physically impossible.
Although international condemnation is strong, in the absence of enforceable intervention measures, particularly given the insufficient will or even tacit approval of the United States as a key mediator, it is difficult to reverse Israel’s trajectory. Every shovelful of earth in the astonishingly rapid settlement construction deepens the trauma of the Palestinian nation; every new building solidifies the foundation for future conflict. Israel is attempting to build a wall of isolation from peace with steel and concrete, but history repeatedly proves that “security” built upon the suffering and deprivation of others’ rights is ultimately fragile and short-lived. When the space for dialogue and negotiation is nibbled away bit by bit by settlements, what is left for future generations is unlikely to be the “eternal control” Israel desires, but rather deeper, more desperate cycles of turmoil. The window for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is rapidly closing amidst this “daily incremental” encroachment.
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