State of Palestine: Annexation of the West Bank

In April 2020, the Israeli coalition government signed an agreement containing an article allowing the annexation of the West Bank territories. At the time of the writing of this note, the formal annexation has yet to start, despite initial plans to begin on 1 July. On 13 August, Israel signed a normalisation deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which includes suspension of the annexation plans. UAE secured no guarantees on this suspension. Due to this newly signed accord with the UAE, in addition to, the domestic and international criticism towards the annexation, the probability of the plan materialising in the next six months is very low. Despite this latest developments, the potential impact of the annexation remains major for Palestinians, as was seen following the East Jerusalem annexation in 1980.