By Dr Brian Brivati, Executive Director, Britain Palestine Project
6 Aug 2025
Israel appears poised to escalate policies that could irrevocably undermine the prospects for an independent Palestinian state – making robust international pressure more critical than ever.
In recent weeks, some of Israel’s closest allies have signalled unprecedented steps to push for a policy change: Britain, France, and Canada have all moved toward formally recognising a Palestinian state as leverage against Israel’s actions, amid growing outrage over Gaza’s humanitarian. The United States, while “complaining” about the humanitarian situation has condemn these moves. So rather than heeding these signals, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Government appears to be doubling down on territorial consolidation.
The Israeli war cabinet is reportedly poised to approve a full reoccupation of the Gaza Strip, and the coalition has revived the contentious E1 settlement plan in the West Bank – a move so detrimental to any two-state solution that France insists it “must not be implemented”.
These moves occur amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where United Nations agencies warn famine is unfolding despite there being sufficient food in the region to feed Gaza for three months. This coincides with a crackdown on humanitarian organisations through new regulations that threaten to de-register most international NGOs operating in the occupied territories.
Recognition must be only the beginning of a broader process – a first step in raising the political and economic cost to Israel for persisting in the breach of international law, until its changes course.
As Sir Jeremy Greenstock commented on Arab Digest:
The pessimism over the prospects for a two-state solution is fully justified. But the wider debate has been useful in bringing out a factor that the media have too often glossed over: that the only realistic alternative to a TSS is not a one-state solution, which the Israelis will reject even more firmly than a TSS, but the annexation of the whole Occupied Territories and the expulsion of most Palestinians. The crucial message of recognition is that this is a totally unacceptable ambition, which recognising states will always oppose.
This is the increasingly stark choice being presented to the Israeli electorate. Support annexation, and your country will be opposed by a wide proportion of world opinion and trading partners for the indefinite future; or accept that a TSS is Israel’s best long-term hope of peace and security, however distasteful that appears at present. That is what Netanyahu’s polarising strategy has delivered at this point.
Annexation: war cabinet poised to ‘fully occupy’ Gaza
Israeli media report that Netanyahu has decided to fully occupy and annex Gaza, with the war cabinet expected to approve expanded military operations across the entire strip. According to multiple outlets (i24 News, Jerusalem Post, Channel 12, Ynet), the decision has been made to extend Israeli control into all areas of Gaza, with moves already being made into areas where Israeli hostages are held, effectively. Netanyahu has publicly doubled down on war aims of “defeat of the enemy [Hamas]… and assurance that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” framing the full reoccupation as necessary to neutralise Hamas and rescue remaining captives.
Israeli officials argue Hamas will not release hostages absent total surrender, and warn that if Israel “doesn’t act now” the hostages could die and “Gaza will remain under Hamas’s control”. The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry has condemned these annexation plans and urged urgent international intervention to prevent their implementation.
If carried out, Israel’s full takeover of Gaza would mark the first formal re-annexation of the territory since the 2005 disengagement. It would likely extinguish any near-term prospect of Palestinian self-governance in Gaza, cementing Israeli rule over 2.1m’ Palestinians there and further undermining the territorial basis for a two-state solution.
E1 settlement plan: green light for West Bank annexation by stealth
In parallel, the Israeli Government is moving to dramatically expand settlements in the West Bank, particularly the highly contentious E1 area east of Jerusalem. After a four-year freeze, Israeli authorities have resumed advancement of the E1 plan – a project to build over 3,400 housing units connecting the large Ma’ale Adumim settlement to Jerusalem. On 6 Aug, 2025, Israel’s Higher Planning Council was scheduled to hold a final hearing on objections to E1 construction plans. Approving these plans would “effectively formalise the annexation” of a strategic corridor that bisects the West Bank, “undermining the prospects of a viable Palestinian state and the two-state solution”.
E1 has long been recognised as a “red line” because of its impact on Palestinian contiguity. Even Israel’s closest allies oppose it: France reiterated that reviving E1, frozen since 2021, “must not be implemented” as it “is contrary to international law and threatens the prospect of a two-State solution”.
When built, the E1 project would physically sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, slicing the West Bank into disconnected northern and southern cantons. Over 3,700 Palestinian Bedouins in communities now in the E1 zone face renewed threats of forcible displacement. More broadly, Israeli settlement activity has exploded: the settler population in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) now exceeds 740,000, and “more than 97,000” additional settlement units are in advanced stages of approval or construction. It is accompanied by extreme violence by the settlers which is carried out with impunity against Palestinians.
Gaza’s humanitarian collapse: famine and unprecedented civilian toll
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated to levels UN officials describe as unprecedented in modern history. Nearly two years of intense war and blockade since October 2023 have brought Gaza’s 2.1m residents to the brink of catastrophe. According to Gaza health authorities, over 60,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, including at least 18,430 children. Continuous Israeli bombardment and the collapse of infrastructure have left 80 per cent of the population displaced at least once, with many sheltering in ruins and open-air camps. Essential services – electricity, clean water, healthcare – have largely collapsed.
Most alarmingly, famine conditions have now emerged. On 29 July 2025 the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued a global alert that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”. Food consumption has collapsed – 81 per cent of households reported poor food intake (up from 33per cent in April) and 24 per cent of households faced “very severe hunger”, crossing the IPC’s famine threshold for food consumption. Acute malnutrition is skyrocketing: severe food poverty among children under five rose from 58 per cent in February to 94 per cent by June, and in Gaza City the Global Acute Malnutrition rate jumped from 4.4 per cent in May to 16.5 per cent by mid-July, also reaching famine levels.
Crackdown on humanitarian organisations: NGOs face de-registration
Compounding the crisis, the Israeli Government is imposing sweeping new constraints on humanitarian and civil society organisations that operate in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. In March 2025, Israel announced onerous new registration and visa rules for international NGOs (INGOs), which aid groups say are designed to politicise and restrict their work.
Under these rules, all international aid organisations must reapply for registration within a six-month window or face deregistration. Approximately 170 INGOs, including major agencies like Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Norwegian Refugee Council, were given until September 2025 to submit to the new vetting process. Israeli authorities assert that greater oversight is needed to ensure humanitarian work aligns with “national interests” and claim (without evidence) that aid to Gaza might be diverted to Hamas.
In practice, the criteria for registration are extremely broad and politicised: applications can be denied if an NGO, or even any of its staff, partners or donors, has ever expressed support for boycotts of Israel, “delegitimised” Israel or advocated for accountability of Israeli officials in international courts. On 6 Aug, the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) issused a statement on the situation:
Already, NGOs that are not registered under the new system are prohibited from sending any supplies to Gaza. In July this year, Israeli authorities rejected repeated requests by 29 NGOs to ship humanitarian aid to Gaza citing the organisations as “not authorised. This policy has already prevented the delivery of life-saving aid including medicine, food and hygiene items. This most profoundly affects women, children, older people and persons with disabilities, further aggravating the risk of being subjected to abuse and exploitation.
Implications and international response: a vanishing two-state horizon
Taken together, these developments paint a stark picture of an Israeli strategy accelerating territorial acquisition and consolidation of control over Palestinian areas while simultaneously weakening Palestinian institutional resilience and international support networks.
The full annexation of Gaza, if formalised, would eliminate any political separation between Israel and the Gaza Strip, effectively undoing the concept that Gaza could form part of an independent Palestinian state. In the West Bank, the E1 settlement construction is often described as a “doomsday” option for the two-state solution, as it would permanently sever the proposed capital (East Jerusalem) from the rest of any Palestinian polity and fragment the territory beyond repair. Meanwhile, the humanitarian implosion in Gaza – with mass casualties, displacement, and famine-like conditions – is destroying the fabric of Palestinian. The crackdown on NGOs and aid agencies removes the last lifelines of support and accountability, aiming to silence criticism and “shrink the space” in which Palestinians can survive under occupation.
The sum of these policies is a scenario in which the very notion of a viable Palestinian state is being eroded in real time. Israeli leaders from the current far-right coalition openly advocate for maximalist outcomes – from re-establishing settlements in Gaza to annexing the West Bank – and are creating facts on the ground toward those ends.
The window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing. Israel’s actions are “dismantling Palestinian territorial contiguity” and pushing matters to a critical juncture where soon there may no state left to recognise as Palestine.
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