Israeli legal experts have stated that the mere establishment of the "Settlement Directorate" within the Ministry of Defense, at the request of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Ministry of Defense, constitutes an annexation of the West Bank to Israel. Officials within the "Settlement Directorate" also assert that they are seeking to implement the annexation plan on the ground.

According to Yoni Danino, head of the "directorate's" staff, the "Settlement Directorate" has two main goals: to have the Israeli authorities treat the West Bank in the same way they treat the Negev and the Galilee in terms of development and resource allocation, and to implement "sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," according to what Haaretz reported on Sunday.

Danino added, "Imposing sovereignty depends on Knesset legislation. We don't have the power to implement this, but we do have the power to push the situation, professionally speaking, to the closest point that allows it. The more the administration imposes facts on the ground, through regular government regulatory steps, the establishment of another industrial zone, another house, and the paving of another road, the more things will mature and the ability to impose sovereignty will be better. Imposing sovereignty is not a decision I will make, but I can create an actual sovereign reality."

“If we create a situation where all residents of the central part of the country travel to the Golan Heights via Judea and Samaria, because Waze directs them to travel on Route 90 (which runs from Eilat in the south to Metulla in the north) and Route 5 (which connects Tel Aviv to the West Bank and is called the Trans-Samaria Highway) with bridges and without traffic jams, this will eventually lead to sovereignty,” Danino said.

He continued, "If 20% of Israel's energy production is in Judea and Samaria, and solar and renewable energy is produced from there, this will achieve sovereignty."

Danino noted that the way settlers are governed in the West Bank has "changed 180 degrees" during the current Israeli government's term, and that "citizens (settlers) are subject to the governor, who is legally the general (commander of the IDF Central Command), but it is the citizens who run things, not the people who view them from a security perspective. If it is decided to build a balcony in the Beit El settlement, the impact on the security situation in Ramallah is not addressed. The army can provide comments, but it does not manage such a construction process."

The head of the Settlement Administration added, "For many years, no settlements have been established in Judea and Samaria. During this government's tenure, 28 new settlements have been officially established, and these are not random outposts. This is a dramatic increase in percentages. These are works carried out by the state with distinction."

Data from the Peace Now movement, based on reports from the Supreme Planning Council of the Israeli military's Civil Administration, indicates that 4,427 settlement construction plans were approved in 2022, 12,349 in 2023, 9,971 in 2024, and 14,335 in the first three months of 2025.

"Annexation is neither creeping nor accelerating, it is already happening," the newspaper quoted Ziv Shtehl, general director of the human rights organization Yesh Din, as saying. "Besides violating the fundamental rule of international law, which prohibits annexation, it has a dramatic impact on every aspect of the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, three million of whom are not citizens and find themselves in the status of subjects without rights, at the mercy of a government they have no ability to influence."

Following Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election last November, Smotrich declared that 2025 would be "the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria."

During the last winter Knesset session, coalition MKs were seen seeking to advance laws aimed at changing the situation in the West Bank, supported by government decisions that ignored the Palestinian population and international law, according to the newspaper.

Last December, Israeli Minister of Construction and Housing Yitzhak Goldknopf decreed Israel's urban renewal laws on West Bank settlements. These laws grant building contractors substantial benefits, with the aim of expediting the construction of tens of thousands of housing units in the settlements. These benefits include exemptions from improvement taxes, land purchase taxes, and value-added tax on construction.

At the end of last January, the Knesset approved in its preliminary reading a bill that would make it easier for Jews to purchase land in the West Bank, contrary to the current situation, and would repeal the Jordanian law prohibiting the leasing and sale of property to anyone who is not Jordanian, Palestinian, or Arab.

Last November, the Knesset approved in its first reading a bill allowing Israeli military courts to impose fines on Palestinian citizens who have not paid fines imposed by military courts.

Another bill, approved by the Knesset in its second and third readings, stipulates that local authorities in settlements may collect a portion of the income from taxes in settlement industrial and commercial zones.

Another bill would consider the settlements in the southern Hebron Hills and the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron part of the Negev, which would grant the settlers there budgets from the Negev Development Authority.

The Knesset approved the bill in its preliminary reading last May, and it was transferred to the Knesset Economics Committee for preparation for a subsequent vote. Committee Chairman David Bitan, realizing that the bill would require "imposing Israeli sovereignty" over the West Bank, instructed the committee's legal advisor to examine how the bill could be advanced in a manner that circumvents international law.