TEHRAN- Israel stands accused of intensifying efforts to annex the entire occupied West Bank as Donald Trump is preparing to take the helm at the White House. 

In November last year, the Israeli finance minister who is a member of the Religious Zionist Party said he believed Israel could work with the incoming Trump administration to promote annexation of the West Bank.
In the same month, he posted a message on X to push for Israel’s “sovereignty” over the West Bank. 

“2025: the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich wrote on X, using the biblical name by which Israel refers to the occupied West Bank.

On Friday, Israeli media revealed that the next US administration is set to advance Israel’s expansionist agenda. 

Israel’s Channel 14 said activists are pushing US Congress to pass legislation prohibiting the use of the term “West Bank” in official US statements and documents in favor of the term “Judea and Samaria”. 

The channel said that the US Congress will host a special event on January 15 to establish a lobby named “Judea and Samaria,” according to Middle East Monitor. 

According to the news station, the lobby’s first initiative will aim to pass legislation banning the use of the term “West Bank” in official US statements and documents. Instead, the term “Judea and Samaria” would be used, reflecting the belief that the area is “the land of the Jewish people.”

It added that this forms part of ongoing efforts to reinforce the Israeli narrative about the occupied Palestinian territories and strengthen US support for Israel’s colonialist positions.

The Israeli apartheid regime occupied the West Bank in 1967. Over the past years, it has expanded settlements in the Palestinian territory. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law.