'Time to stop': Trump vows Israel will not annex West Bank

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, rejecting calls from some far-right politicians in Israel who want to extend sovereignty over the area and snuff out hopes for a viable Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced some pressure from allies to annex the West Bank, prompting alarm among Arab leaders, some of whom met on Tuesday with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. Nope, I will not allow it. It’s not going to happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“There’s been enough. It’s time to stop now,” he said.

Trump made the comments as Netanyahu was arriving in New York to deliver an address to the United Nations on Friday.

Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks. Israeli settlements have grown in size and number since Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war. They stretch deep into the territory with a system of roads and other infrastructure under Israeli control, further slicing up the land.

A widely condemned Israeli settlement plan known as the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, received final approval in August. It will cut across land that the Palestinians seek for a state.

Trump met leaders and officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan on Tuesday to discuss the nearly two-year-long war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Arab and Muslim countries warned him about the grave consequences of any annexation of the West Bank — a message the U.S. president “understands very well,” according to Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud.

About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized by most countries.

Israel refuses to cede control of the West Bank, a position it says has been reinforced since the Hamas-led militant attack on its territory, launched on Gaza October 7, 2023.