Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently announced that Israel must block the path to establishing an independent Palestinian state.

During a closed-door meeting with the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Netanyahu stated, as the Israeli state-owned television Kan reported, "We are making preparations for the post-Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) era."

It is important to highlight that Abbas currently does not have a clear successor.

Regarding the Palestinians' hopes of establishing a sovereign state, Netanyahu also reiterated that their ambitions "must be eliminated."

Netanyahu’s remarks came amid an escalation of Israeli military and settler violence in the occupied West Bank and the decision by the Israeli government to expand its illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Since entering office in January, Netanyahu's coalition has approved promoting more than 7,000 new housing units, most deep in the West Bank.

In response to Netanyahu's statements, the official spokesperson for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said: "The Palestinian state exists and is recognized by more than 140 countries, and it only needs to end the occupation to realize its independence. Israel cannot perpetuate its occupation by continuing the aggression against the Palestinian people and escalating the policy of killing, settlement, land theft and other aggressive acts."

Pointing out that Palestine is an observer member of the United Nations and many other international agencies, Abu Rudeineh called on the international community "to intervene and hold Israel accountable for its actions and words that contravene international legitimacy."

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a press statement that Netanyahu's remarks "are condemned" as "it is an official recognition of the Israeli government's policy of hostility to peace and rejection of peaceful resolutions."

The last round of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis broke down at the end of March 2014 because of their divisions over settlement, security and borders.

The Palestinians want to establish an independent state alongside Israel on all the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Increased Israeli violence

In one of Israel’s biggest military operations in the occupied West Bank in years, between July 3-4, Israeli forces conducted their largest military operation involving Israeli armed drone strikes in the city of Jenin, killing 12 Palestinians, including five children, seriously injuring more than 100 and leaving widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure, arbitrarily displacing thousands. The aggression amounts to egregious violations of international law and may constitute a war crime, according to U.N. experts.

Around 4,000 Palestinians reportedly fled the Jenin Refugee Camp overnight after the deadly airstrikes.

"It is heartbreaking to see thousands of Palestinian refugees originally displaced since 1947-1949 forced to march out of the camp in abject fear at the dead of night," the experts said.

Denouncing so-called "counterterrorism" operations by Israeli forces, the experts said the attacks found no justification under international law.

"The attacks constitute collective punishment of the Palestinian population, who has been labeled a "collective security threat" in the eyes of Israeli authorities," they said.

They expressed grave concern about military weaponry and tactics deployed by Israel’s occupation forces at least twice over the last two weeks against Jenin’s population.

"At these moments, we are completing the mission, and I can say that our extensive operation in Jenin is not a one-off," Netanyahu said at a nearby military checkpoint.

Following Jenin’s operation, Israel raided the occupied West Bank town of Nablus and killed two Palestinians. These Israeli military escalations specifically targeted civilians, mosques, homes, infrastructure, ambulances and medical facilities.

Since the beginning of 2023, the situation has worsened with increased violence, including attacks on Palestinians by settlers, demolitions and military raids in other refugee camps – all leading to the abhorrent situation in the occupied West Bank now.

Changing facts on the ground

During the past years, Israel has been seriously jeopardizing the prospects for realizing a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the viability of a Palestinian independent state.

Israel’s ongoing governments have been "actively encouraging" the presence and growth of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. This policy reflected a deliberate strategy designed to prevent the emergence of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

Besides, Israel has been "putting off" the peace process to buy time to expand the settlements and change the facts on the ground to affect the outcome.

Israel’s far-right government, which took office in late December, is dominated by religious and ultranationalist politicians close to the settlement movement and has recently advanced plans for some 5,700 new homes in the occupied West Bank.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler leader who has been granted Cabinet-level authority over settlement policies, has vowed to double the settler population in the West Bank.

Besides, Israeli far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has urged Israeli settlers to expand their presence in the West Bank despite surging violence and international calls to halt new construction.

"We have your backs, run to the hilltops, settle the land," he said.

"We must launch a military operation, bring down buildings, eliminate terrorists, not one or two but dozens and hundreds if necessary, thousands."

"Because, ultimately, it is the only way we will seize this place, strengthen our hold and restore security to the residents," he added.

Settler violence toward Palestinians has always been an extremely dangerous feature of the Israeli occupation and with Netanyahu’s new coalition far-right government, Palestinians are witnessing the highest recorded levels of violence and severe incidents in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces have killed 112 and injured 4,229 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem from the beginning of 2023 until May 29, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report.

In addition, five Palestinians were killed and 105 others injured in attacks by illegal Israeli settlers since the beginning of the year, according to the report.

As of January 2023, there are 141 Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem, with over 100 Israeli outposts in the West Bank.

Over 700,000 Israeli settlers live across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank violating international law.

According to the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, more than 13,000 settlement homes have advanced in the territory in the last six months – about three times as many as last year.

"The Israeli government is pushing us at an unprecedented pace towards the full annexation of the West Bank," the organization said in a statement.

"We affirm that all settler colonialism in all the occupied Palestinian territories is illegitimate and illegal," Peace Now said.

The settlements pose a number of direct challenges to establishing a Palestinian state by violating Palestinian sovereignty, threatening civil peace and security, jeopardizing water resources, and blocking agricultural development.

Palestinians, along with most of the international community, deem the settlements built on Palestinian land captured by Israel in 1967 in the Middle East War to be illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace.

However, U.S. President Joe Biden‘s administration has recently become a little more outspoken in its criticism of Israel’s settlement policies, putting mild pressure on Israel to stop settlement expansion, which is a big obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.

U.S. Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller, in response to the new Israeli settlement plans, said that they are "deeply troubled" by the Israeli government’s latest decision.

"We are simply concerned by reports of changes to Israel’s system of settlement administration that expedite the planning and approval of settlements," Miller said.

"We have communicated our concerns about settlements and increased settlement units directly to the Israeli government and I suspect they can figure out the proper implications."

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the settlements "an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek" in a speech to the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In a sign of its disapproval, the White House decided not to transfer funds to Israeli institutions for science and technology research projects in the occupied West Bank. The decision restored a long-standing policy that had been canceled by the pro-settlement administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

On its part, the EU has repeatedly called on Israel not to proceed with such plans and to halt all settlement activities. It remains the EU’s firm position that settlements are illegal under international law.

By legalizing dozens of settlements in the West Bank, successive Israeli governments have created an insurmountable obstacle to the two-state solution and the Palestinian dream of an independent sovereign state.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella for Israeli Jewish settlements, said in 2021 that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be created under his watch and would expand existing Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

Regarding Netanyahu's position, he has always considered settlements a tool to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state and he plans to continue the settlements' systematic and strategic expansion believing that his strategy worked during his previous government terms and would be successful with his new far right one as well.