DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip— The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday warned that any Israeli move to annex the occupied West Bank would be a “red line,” without specifying its possible impact on the landmark normalization accord between the two countries,
The warning came as Israel pressed ahead with the initial stages of its latest major offensive in famine-stricken Gaza City. Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday killed at least 31 people, according to local hospitals.
Israelis were taking part in nationwide demonstrations to protest the call-up of 60,000 reserves for the expanded operation, which has sparked global condemnation and left the country increasingly isolated.
The demonstrators accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the fighting for political purposes instead of reaching a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would free hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war.
“We have to take an extreme action so that someone will remember. There’s no such thing as a state abandoning its citizens,” Yael Kuperman, a protester near the Knesset told Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
A rare warning from the UAE
The UAE was the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump, in which it and three other Arab countries forged ties with Israel. Trump has said he hopes to expand the accords in his second term, potentially to include regional power Saudi Arabia.
Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati diplomat, wrote on the social platform X that “annexation is a red line.”
He linked to a Times of Israel story that quoted Emirati diplomat Lana Nusseibeh as saying annexation would “severely undermine the vision and spirit of (Abraham) Accords, end the pursuit of regional integration and would alter the widely shared consensus on what the trajectory of this conflict should be — two states living side by side in peace, prosperity and security.”
The two diplomats did not specifically say that Abu Dhabi would withdraw from the agreement, and the Emirati Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions seeking clarification.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories to form their future state. Israel’s current government is staunchly opposed to Palestinian statehood and supports eventual annexation of much of the West Bank.
The Palestinians and much of the international community say that would prevent a two-state solution, which is widely seen internationally as the only way to resolve the decades-old conflict.
The Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-member bloc of which the UAE is a member, separately came out Wednesday with its own statement calling proposals to annex the West Bank “dangerous.”
Palestinians face more displacement as strikes continue
Israeli strikes on Gaza City killed at least 15 people, including two children and four women, according to Shifa Hospital and Al-Quds Hospital, where the bodies were taken. An additional 16 people were killed in southern Gaza, including 10 who were seeking humanitarian aid, according to Nasser Hospital.
Israel says it only targets militants and takes measures to spare civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas.
Israel says that Gaza City — the largest Palestinian city in either the besieged strip or the occupied West Bank — remains a Hamas stronghold above what military officials claim is a vast underground tunnel network, even after several major raids earlier in the war.
Israel has intensified air and ground assaults on the outskirts of Gaza City, particularly in western neighborhoods where people are being driven to flee toward the coast, according to humanitarian groups that coordinate assistance for the displaced.
Site Management Cluster, one such group, said Wednesday that families were trapped by the prohibitively high cost of moving, logistical hurdles and a lack of places to go.
“Palestinians are also reluctant to move due to the fear of not being able to return or exhaustion from repeated displacement,” it said.
