Three Israeli officials said Israel is considering annexing parts of the occupied West Bank, as several Western countries move toward recognizing a Palestinian state this month.

This is one of the steps Israel is considering in response to the expected recognition of a Palestinian state by France, Australia, Canada, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, joining over 140 countries that already recognize Palestine.

The officials told CNN, speaking anonymously, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a preliminary discussion on the matter last week, but the security cabinet has not yet discussed it in detail, and no decision has been made so far.

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and soon after began establishing Jewish settlements there in defiance of international law. Palestinians want the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip for their future state, a position supported by most of the international community.

The Israeli officials said Netanyahu is considering various scales and scopes of annexation options, ranging from limited seizure of several Jewish settlements to a broader approach calling for annexing Area C, which represents 60% of the West Bank territory.

A series of peace agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s, known as the Oslo Accords, divided the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, with Area C entirely under Israeli administrative and security control.

According to an Israeli official, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar briefed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the annexation plans during a meeting last week.

However, other Israeli sources told CNN that the plans have not yet received the green light from the United States.

Two officials said one of the main options under consideration is annexing the Jordan Valley, a strip of land on the eastern edge of the West Bank along the Jordan River.

The officials explained that there is broader Israeli public consensus supporting such a proposal, adding that Israel’s need to use it as a security buffer would make it easier to market to the international community, especially Washington.

However, Netanyahu’s far-right political allies, ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, along with settler leadership, oppose partial annexation that includes specific sectors or settlement blocs, pushing instead for the maximalist approach of applying Israeli sovereignty over all lands uninhabited by Palestinians.

This move would allow Israel to encircle Palestinian population centers, further undermining the possibility of a geographically contiguous Palestinian state.

Applying sovereignty over Palestinian-inhabited lands could obligate Israel to grant citizenship or residency status to about 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.

Any annexation of occupied West Bank territory by imposing Israeli sovereignty would violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions and provoke angry diplomatic reactions.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law. The United Nations reinforced this classification in 2016 with Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared Jewish settlements in occupied territories a “flagrant violation” of international law and “have no legal validity.”

Omer Rahamim, CEO of the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, told CNN that applying sovereignty should be a “preemptive step before French recognition of the Palestinian state.”

Rahamim added that settler leadership demands broad annexation steps, not limited to settlement blocs or the Jordan Valley only.

He claimed, “Applying sovereignty on several or specific settlement blocs only means the rest of the area will become a terror state – another Gaza in the heart of the country. We strongly oppose that.”

According to an Israeli official, due to expected political and international pressures, Netanyahu is considering a gradual, phased annexation plan, starting with a specific area on the path toward expanding sovereignty.

The official added that the phased plan would enable Israel to backtrack on full annexation in exchange for normalization with Saudi Arabia.

The last time Israel seriously considered annexing the West Bank was in 2020, when Netanyahu ultimately abandoned these plans as part of the Abraham Accords that normalized relations with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco.

Saudi Arabia has said normalization will not happen until Israel commits to a path leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Alongside annexation, Israel is considering other punitive measures in response to developments related to the Palestinian state, including imposing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank as part of the peace agreement with Israel, or evacuating the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar.

On Friday, the United States announced it had decided to deny visas to Palestinian Authority officials coming to the United Nations General Assembly this month, where French President Emmanuel Macron intends to announce France’s recognition of the Palestinian state, becoming the first permanent UN Security Council member to do so.

An Israeli official said the U.S. visa denial decision was coordinated with the Israeli government in an attempt to prevent Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from attending.