With Israel’s national general election just one month away, far-right Religious Zionism party leader and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has sparked international condemnation with an extreme call for Israel to launch full-scale military conflict in the occupied West Bank, mirroring the military campaign Israel has waged in Gaza.
In an interview published on Ynet’s 120 and One political podcast, Smotrich doubled down on a long-held radical demand: the full dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, the governing body that exercises limited self-administration over fragmented pockets of the occupied West Bank. Smotrich, one of the most vocal proponents of expanding illegal Israeli settlements and annexing the entire West Bank under Israeli sovereignty, made clear his political positioning ahead of the October 27 vote, ruling out any participation in a cross-bloc unity government.
“I don’t turn my back on my partners,” Smotrich said during the interview. “I am part of the national camp, which shares a broad common denominator of Jewish identity, Zionism, love of the land, settlement and a distinct security doctrine.”
The minister also launched a sharp attack on former Israeli military officer Ofer Winter, who is leading a new political party ahead of the election. Smotrich labeled Winter’s electoral bid an “irresponsible gamble” that threatens Israeli national security, claiming there is a “99.9 percent chance he won’t cross the [electoral] threshold.” He added that any vote for Winter would be wasted, arguing that a split in the right-wing vote could put left-leaning parties in power, enable the establishment of a Palestinian state, and weaken what he called Israel’s Jewish identity.
Amcha Yisrael, the group for which Winter serves as a spokesperson, rejected Smotrich’s claims outright, hitting back that sitting Israeli political leadership has already failed to deliver what the group describes as a decisive victory in Gaza. “Three years after October 7, there is no decisive victory in Gaza and no voluntary migration,” the party said in a statement. “The failed mindset persists.”
Smotrich also ruled out any future cooperation with Raam, an Arab-led Israeli party that has previously participated in governing coalitions, claiming the party’s leadership ultimately seeks Israel’s destruction.
Smotrich’s inflammatory comments come as humanitarian and security conditions continue to deteriorate sharply across the occupied West Bank, amid a sustained surge in settler violence, expanded settlement encroachment, and widespread movement restrictions on Palestinian residents. Just days before the interview, Israeli authorities ordered a “comprehensive closure” of all border crossings into the occupied territory for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Palestinian state news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces imposed tightened restrictions around the key West Bank city of Ramallah, blocking roads and access points to multiple nearby towns and villages. Local sources told Wafa that the main entrance gate to Turmus Ayya, a town located north of Ramallah, was shuttered, and local residents were subjected to harassment by Israeli personnel. Additional access points to the towns of Aboud, Nabi Saleh, Atara and Taybeh were also closed, with new military checkpoints erected at the entrances to Yabroud and Ein Sinyah.
Recent UN data underscores the rapidly worsening situation on the ground. In an August 2026 report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented that illegal Israeli settlement outposts, historically concentrated in Area C of the West Bank (where Israel holds full administrative and security control), are increasingly encroaching into Area B, territory where the Palestinian Authority maintains limited civil control. OCHA noted that settlers regularly use violence and intimidation to bar Palestinian residents from accessing their own agricultural and residential land.
Israeli anti-settlement advocacy group Peace Now estimates that Israeli settlers have seized more than 100,000 dunams (equivalent to 10,000 hectares) of Palestinian land in Areas A and B — the sections of the West Bank officially designated for Palestinian self-rule — since the occupation began. As of July 2026, OCHA recorded that at least 850 Palestinians have been injured in settler attacks across the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, averaging more than three injuries per day linked to settler aggression.
The West Bank is already crisscrossed by a sprawling network of Israeli military checkpoints, access gates, physical barriers, and permit systems that severely restrict Palestinian movement across the territory. In December 2025, OCHA counted 925 separate permanent obstacles to free movement, a figure that does not include temporary roadblocks and ad-hoc checkpoints that are erected on a near-daily basis. This network, combined with Israel’s separation barrier, has fragmented Palestinian communities and cut residents off from work, healthcare, education, and family connections.
The expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank has been repeatedly ruled unlawful under international law. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark ruling confirming that Israel’s long-term continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory violates international law, and ordered that all new settlement activity must halt immediately. The ICJ also found that Israel’s system of nearly complete separation between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem constitutes a violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The United Nations has repeatedly reaffirmed that all Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory hold no legal validity, and has warned that continued settlement expansion and accompanying repressive measures carry a severe risk of further mass dispossession and forced displacement of the Palestinian people from their historic land.