ISRAELI government measures that deepen its control over the occupied West Bank amount to implementing “de facto sovereignty,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen said today.

He told Army Radio that the steps “actually establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state.”

Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights groups have described the steps announced Sunday as an annexation of the territory,  which is home to roughly 3.4 million Palestinians who seek it for a future state.

Mr Cohen’s comments followed similar remarks by other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz.

The measures further erode the Palestinian Authority’s limited powers and it’s unclear how far it can oppose them. 

Palestinian Authority Deputy President Hussein al-Sheikh said today that “the Palestinian leadership called on all civil and security institutions in the state of Palestine” to reject them.

Posting on X he charged that the Israeli measures “contradict international law and the agreements signed with the Palestine Liberation Organisation.”

A group of eight Arab and Muslim-majority countries expressed their “absolute rejection” of the steps on Monday, warning they would “fuel violence and conflict in the region.”

Israel’s pledge not to annex the West Bank is embedded in its diplomatic agreements with some of those countries and renewed warnings from the United Arab Emirates that it was a “red line” led Israel to shelve some high-level discussions on the matter last year.

Fathi Nimer, a Palestine policy fellow at the al-Shabaka think tank, told the Al Jazeera television network: “For the past two years, thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes.

“Dozens of communities have been destroyed by marauding settlers, raiding and destroying whatever they want with the full backing of the army.”

He said there was “likely to be more legislation that’s going to be even more egregious on their way to officially annex the West Bank.”

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks in central Gaza killed three Palestinians, while at least four were killed in an air strike on a residential building in western Gaza City.

Israeli forces have killed at least 586 Palestinians and wounded 1,558 in Gaza since the current “ceasefire” began on the October 10, the territory’s Health Ministry said.

The total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023 has topped 72,037, with 171,666 wounded.