News- Middle East: Four Israeli ministers have called for the annexation of the West Bank and expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territory, in breach of international law.

The ministers made their request on Sunday during the inauguration of a neighborhood in the illegal Har Brakha settlement, located near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, according to the Israeli public broadcaster KAN.

The ministers who made the calls were Israel Katz, minister of military affairs; Orit Strock, minister of Settlements and National Missions; Yariv Levin, minister of justice; and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, minister of Negev, Galilee, and national resilience.

KAN added that the ministers, along with other settler leaders, demanded the imposition of the Tel Aviv regime’s sovereignty and the expansion of settlements in Judea and Samaria (the biblical term by which some Israelis refer to the occupied West Bank).

Katz described the settlement as the frontline of Israel's defense, emphasizing that the Israeli military's offensives in the West Bank will persist.

The Hamas resistance movement, in a statement on Monday, said the Israeli ministers’ call for annexing the West Bank represents an extension of aggressive colonialist policies, and marks a desperate attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause by plundering the land and stealing it from its original owners.

The Gaza-based group stressed that these statements reflect the colonial and fascist mentality governing the occupying regime, and constitute a flagrant violation of international law and global resolutions.

Hamas noted that the Zionist entity’s expansionist policies place the international community, the United Nations, and its institutions before the responsibility of taking immediate action to hold the regime accountable and halt its criminal practices against Palestinians, their land and holy sites.

The movement then called on all walks of the Palestinian society to escalate resistance in all its forms, continue the uprising, and engage in confrontations with Israeli forces and settler gangs until the will of the occupying regime and its fascist leaders is broken, and their Judaization plans are foiled.

Israel has ramped up its aggression against Palestinians across the West Bank since October 7 last year, when it launched a genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands of others injured by Israeli settlers or troops across the occupied territory since the onset of the war.

More than 700,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The international community views the settlements as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on the occupied territories.

Source: Press TV