‘Areas A and B Are Ours’: Smotrich Declares Oslo Accords ‘Null and Void’

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared the Oslo Accords “null and void” and claimed that Areas A and B of the occupied West Bank “are also ours.” (Design: PC)

Key Developments

• Smotrich declared the Oslo Accords “null and void” and said Areas A and B of the occupied West Bank “are also ours.”
• He called for dismantling the Palestinian Authority and predicted an Israeli military operation to “disarm all the Arabs” in the West Bank.
• Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers beat five Palestinians in Tulkarem and Nablus, while an Israeli court rejected appeals against demolitions in the Jordan Valley.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared the Oslo Accords “null and void,” claimed Palestinian-administered Areas A and B of the occupied West Bank for Israel, and called for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority.

Speaking at a conference on Sunday, the far-right minister openly acknowledged that his position on the territory differed from that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“In any case, Oslo is null and void. In any case, Areas A and B are also ours,” Smotrich said. “That is a dispute with the prime minister,” he added.

The comments go beyond Smotrich’s longstanding demands for Israeli sovereignty over Area C, which constitutes approximately 60 percent of the occupied West Bank and remains under full Israeli control under the Oslo framework.

Areas A and B encompass the principal Palestinian population centers and constitute the territory in which the Palestinian Authority exercises varying degrees of administrative authority.

Smotrich also indicated that Netanyahu had ordered Israeli sites established in those areas to be removed – a directive he explicitly opposed.

“Netanyahu, to the best of my knowledge, gave an instruction to evacuate places established in Areas A and B. I don’t like that instruction,” he said.

‘We Will Disarm All the Arabs’

Smotrich went further, predicting that Israel would eventually launch a major military operation throughout the occupied West Bank.

“There will be no avoiding a war in Judea and Samaria in the near future, in which we will disarm all the Arabs in Judea and Samaria,” he said, using the biblical terminology employed by Israeli officials for the occupied Palestinian territory.

He argued that Palestinians possessed significantly more weapons than Israeli authorities publicly acknowledged and said Israel should judge its adversaries according to their capabilities rather than their intentions.

Smotrich also called for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, describing it as a “terrorist entity” and accusing it of financing attacks and inciting against Israel.

The PA was created under the Oslo process in the 1990s as an interim Palestinian governing body.

What Are Areas A, B and C?

The 1995 Oslo II Accord divided the occupied West Bank into three administrative zones.

Area A was placed under Palestinian administrative and security control, while Area B came under Palestinian civil administration with Israel retaining overriding military powers.

Area C, encompassing roughly 60 percent of the West Bank, remained under full Israeli administrative and military control.

The territorial divisions were established as interim arrangements pending negotiations toward a permanent political settlement that was never achieved.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967.

Demolitions Advance

On Monday, developments elsewhere in the occupied West Bank underscored the continuing Israeli military pressure on Palestinian communities.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli soldiers assaulted and beat five Palestinians in two separate incidents in the northern West Bank.

Two Palestinians were hospitalized after Israeli soldiers beat them in Anabta, in the Tulkarem governorate, while another three were taken to hospital following a similar incident in Burqa, in the Nablus governorate.

In the central West Bank, Israeli soldiers also fired tear gas toward Palestinians at the Ein Sinya military checkpoint north of Ramallah after tightening restrictions and causing severe traffic congestion, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Jordan Valley Demolitions

Separately, an Israeli court rejected appeals seeking to stop the demolition of Palestinian residential and agricultural structures in the northern Jordan Valley.

The appeals concerned structures belonging to eight Palestinians and had been filed by the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission and authorities in the Tubas governorate.

Mutaz Bisharat, an official monitoring illegal Israeli settlement activity in Tubas, said the appeals had been rejected.

“The occupation rejected the appeals submitted to halt the demolition of residential and agricultural structures belonging to eight citizens in the northern Jordan Valley,” he said.

Bisharat accused Israel of “racing against time to carry out the largest possible demolition operations in the Jordan Valley as part of a systematic policy to uproot citizens from their lands.”