PALESTINE campaigners have condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to illegally annex parts of the West Bank into the Israeli state if he wins the country’s elections next week.

Netanyahu said that if re-elected he will take over large parts of the Palestinian West Bank with “maximum co-ordination with Trump.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) called on the British government to act by immediately banning the import of settlement goods and ending the arms trade with Israel.

Campaigners said that the annexation “seeks to entrench the de-facto sovereignty Israel is exercising over the 2.8 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank under Israeli military control which denies them basic human rights.”

PSC said in a statement: “This proposed move follows a series of acts by the Netanyahu government that has attacked the collective rights of the Palestinian people; whether those living under military occupation or as citizens of the state of Israel.

“Earlier this year, when Netanyahu ran for re-election and subsequently failed to form a government in the Knesset, he publicly reasserted his belief that that Israel ‘is not a state of all its citizens’.”

PSC said that all candidates for Prime Minister in the upcoming elections have demonstrated commitment to ongoing military occupation and apartheid.

PSC director Ben Jamal said: “This pledge is not only a stark reminder of the Israeli government’s staunch commitment to stripping Palestinians of their rights and their homeland, but it also highlights that the fundamental issues with the Israeli state run far deeper than one politician or government.

“There is no meaningful pressure for change coming from within Israel, and so pressure needs to be exerted externally.

“It is incumbent upon the UK government, which continues to repeat the mantra of its support for a two-state solution, to accept the reality that these steps remove the possibility of a Palestinian state.

“Actions not words are required — PSC reaffirms its call for an immediate ban on the import of settlement goods and an end to the arms trade with Israel, and calls upon UK civil society to continue applying pressure on all companies complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses.”