Fathi Nimer, a Palestine policy fellow at the think tank Al-Shabaka, says Israel’s push to take further control over the occupied West Bank comes amid escalating pressure on Palestinians in the area in the shadow of Israel’s Gaza war. “For the last two years, thousands of Palestinians have lost their homes,” Nimer told Al Jazeera. “Dozens of communities have been destroyed by marauding settlers, raiding and destroying whatever they want with the full backing and support of the army.” The signs that Israel plans to move ahead with the formal annexation of the occupied West Bank “have been there for quite a long time”, he said.
