Israeli Finance Minister Calls for West Bank War 'Like We Did in Gaza' and Dismantling of Palestinian Authority

More than three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, a territory where Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is now calling for a military offensive matching the scale of the ongoing war in Gaza. Speaking on September 27, 2026, the far-right minister demanded that the Israeli military dismantle the Palestinian Authority and eliminate what he described as entrenched terror infrastructure across the territory.[1][2][5]

"I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority," Smotrich stated during an interview on the Ynet news site's podcast. He used the biblical term for the West Bank, a framing common among the Israeli settler movement.[1][2][4]

Smotrich explicitly instructed the military to ensure there would be "no terrorists, no weapons, no tunnels" in the West Bank, drawing a direct parallel to the military campaign that has devastated Gaza since October 2023.[1][3]

The finance minister also advocated for sweeping territorial annexations beyond the West Bank. He argued that Israel should permanently annex the Gaza Strip up to the "Yellow Line"—the area currently under Israeli military control—and southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which sits roughly 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the Israeli border.[1]

"If a war ends on the borders it began, what will prevent the enemy from going to war again? It needs to pay a price," Smotrich argued, framing the proposed annexations as a necessary deterrent following the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent regional conflict.[1]

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited administrative control over parts of the West Bank, immediately condemned the remarks. The Ramallah-based Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates issued a statement on September 28, describing the minister's comments as an "explicit call for escalation, annexation and displacement."[3][6]

The ministry warned that Smotrich's rhetoric aims to undermine any remaining prospects for an independent Palestinian state, characterizing the statements as a direct reflection of Israeli government policies involving land confiscation and settlement expansion.[3][6]

The calls for a broader offensive arrive during a period of intense volatility in the West Bank. Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has recorded an average of six settler-related attacks on Palestinians per day, the highest rate in two decades.[3]

According to Palestinian figures cited by international observers, at least 1,206 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 2023. During the same period, Israeli military operations and checkpoint closures have increasingly isolated communities and hindered access to essential services.[5]

Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry with authority over settlement activities, has leveraged his position to significantly expand Israeli outposts. In his campaign for the upcoming October 27 elections, he has openly trumpeted these expansions as a core achievement.[1]

The finance minister has already brought the Palestinian Authority's financial system close to collapse through efforts to cut it off from Israeli banking networks. Dismantling the authority entirely would leave a governance vacuum for the millions of Palestinians living in the territory.[1][5]

With Israeli elections scheduled for October 27, 2026, Smotrich's hardline proposals reflect an effort to consolidate support among his Religious Zionism party base. The international community now faces the question of whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government will adopt these annexation and escalation policies as official state action.[1]