Smotrich Urges Annexation to Litani and Gaza Yellow Line
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tells Ynet Israel should annex to the Litani and Gaza’s Yellow Line and wage war to dismantle the PA.
JERUSALEM — September 27, 2026. Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called for annexing territory in south Lebanon up to the Litani River and areas of Gaza under Israeli military control, and urged a new war aimed at dismantling the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
Speaking on a podcast for Israeli news site Ynet, Smotrich said he wanted annexation “at least as far as the Yellow Line in Gaza and as far as the Litani River in Lebanon,” arguing that ending a war on the same lines where it began would fail to deter future attacks. He added that Israel should “go to war in Judea and Samaria” — the biblical term for the West Bank — “to dismantle the Palestinian Authority that supports terror.” AFP carried the remarks via outlets including L’Orient Today and The Hindu.
Political signal, not yet cabinet policy
Smotrich leads the Religious Zionist Party and has long advocated annexing the entire West Bank, where more than 500,000 Israeli settlers live among roughly three million Palestinians in territory occupied since 1967. His Yellow Line reference tracks the zone of Israeli military control in Gaza after the war that followed Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. The Litani line would push Israeli sovereignty deep into Lebanon beyond the roughly 10-kilometer strip Israeli forces already occupy in the south.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the West Bank war call as an “explicit call for escalation, annexation and displacement” aimed at burying prospects for a Palestinian state. AFP tallies based on Palestinian official figures put West Bank deaths since the Gaza war began above 1,100 Palestinians, while Israeli figures list dozens of Israelis killed in attacks or during operations over the same period. Smotrich’s podcast language does not automatically become cabinet policy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it hardens the domestic ceiling for any U.S.-brokered framework that assumes eventual Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese or Gazan buffer zones.
Regional timing
The annexation talk landed as Israeli forces continued strikes and raids in south Lebanon and as Hezbollah staged a Beirut ceremony marking two years since the killing of Hassan Nasrallah. For Lebanese officials trying to implement a Washington-framed disarmament-and-deployment sequence, a senior Israeli minister openly seeking Litani annexation undercuts claims that the remaining “security zone” is temporary. For mediators focused on Gaza reconstruction and hostage diplomacy, a finance minister demanding permanent Yellow Line annexation signals that parts of Netanyahu’s coalition treat buffer zones as prospective borders, not bargaining chips.
Smotrich framed deterrence as geography: keep what the army holds, or the next war starts from the same maps. Critics hear a program of permanent occupation dressed as security logic. Either reading matters because coalition arithmetic in Jerusalem still runs through Religious Zionist votes. Until Netanyahu publicly repudiates or adopts the Litani–Yellow Line formula, regional capitals will treat Smotrich’s Ynet interview as a live political constraint on any ceasefire map that requires Israeli pullbacks.
Sources
- L’Orient Today / AFP: Smotrich calls for annexation of Lebanon, Gaza areas
- The Hindu / AFP: Israeli minister calls for West Bank war, annexation
