Smotrich heads to US to strengthen Israel-US economic ties

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who supports the annexation of the occupied West Bank, said on Tuesday that he was travelling to the US for a brief visit. “The goal of this visit is to strengthen economic cooperation between Israel and the United States … and deepen the strategic alliance between our two countries,” Mr Smotrich wrote on social media platform X. His trip comes with US President Donald Trump expected to announce whether to back the annexation of all or part of the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.