A coalition of nearly twenty governments has issued a stark warning that recent Israeli measures in the occupied West Bank amount to an annexation carried out in practice, reshaping realities on the ground and eroding any remaining prospects for Palestinian statehood. The statement, released this week, reflects growing international unease that administrative and legal changes are being used to cement permanent control rather than manage a temporary occupation.

The signatories argue that new land registration procedures, which allow territory to be reclassified as state-owned and opened to direct purchase by Israeli citizens, are not isolated bureaucratic acts. Instead, they describe a coherent strategy designed to alter demographics, fragment Palestinian communities and foreclose political solutions. Such steps, they warn, undermine international law and represent a direct challenge to long-standing diplomatic frameworks that envisage two states living side by side.

Among the countries backing the declaration are Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Egypt, Spain, Indonesia, Turkey and France. Their position has also been endorsed by regional bodies and the Palestinian leadership, amplifying diplomatic pressure at a time when the West Bank is experiencing heightened instability alongside a wider genocidal war affecting Palestinians across the territory.

Palestinian political factions have welcomed the statement while urging that words be matched by action, including tangible measures to halt settlement growth and prevent forced displacement. Meanwhile, settlement expansion has continued at pace under the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, with record numbers of new sites approved in 2025 and a settler population now exceeding half a million among roughly three million Palestinians. Similar concerns have been echoed by a much larger group of states at the United Nations, reinforcing fears that incremental policies are hardening into irreversible facts.