Trump Warns Israel Against Yehudah and Shomron Annexation, Says It Would Lose ‘All U.S. Support’

President Donald Trump has issued a stark warning to Israel not to move ahead with annexing Yehudah and Shomron, declaring that such a step would cost the Jewish state “all support” from the United States. His remarks, made during an interview with TIME Magazine, came amid deepening tensions over a Knesset vote advancing what are understood to be symbolic annexation bills and just days after Trump claimed credit for forcing an end to the war in Gaza.

Trump told the magazine that annexation “won’t happen” because he had given his word to Arab allies. “It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries,” he said. “And you can’t do that now. We’ve had great Arab support. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, speaking at Ben Gurion Airport at the end of his two-day visit, said the Knesset’s preliminary vote to apply Israeli sovereignty to Yehudah and Shomron settlements was “very stupid” and personally insulting. “The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel,” he said. “That will continue to be our policy, and if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that, but we certainly weren’t happy about it.”

The remarks underscored the administration’s frustration after two opposition-backed annexation bills passed initial votes in the Knesset. One sought to annex all Jewish communities in Yehudah and Shomron, while the other focused on Ma’ale Adumim. Despite Netanyahu’s opposition, both bills passed due to support from far-right MKs and the abstention of many in Likud. Netanyahu’s office later denounced the votes as “a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vance’s visit.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar also condemned the bills as “a political move of the opposition to try to embarrass the government.” Likud called the legislation “trolling,” stressing that the government “strengthens settlement every day with actions, budgets, construction, industry, and not with words.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that any attempt to annex Yehudah and Shomron could endanger Trump’s newly brokered Gaza ceasefire. “They passed a vote in the Knesset, but the president has made clear that’s not something we’d be supportive of right now,” Rubio said. “We think there’s potential for [it to be] threatening to the peace deal.”

Trump, meanwhile, told TIME that it was he who compelled Netanyahu to halt the Gaza war. “Bibi, you can’t fight the world,” Trump said he told the Israeli leader. “You can fight individual battles, but the world’s against you.” He said that without U.S. intervention, the fighting might have continued “for years.”

The President’s envoys had brokered a sweeping ceasefire agreement through mediation by Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. According to Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, “It was a very blunt and straightforward statement to Bibi that he had no tolerance for anything other than this.”

Trump sharply criticized Israel’s earlier strike on Hamas operatives in Doha, calling it “a tactical mistake.” Yet he acknowledged that the attack had inadvertently helped push regional leaders toward the peace table. “This was one of the things that brought us all together,” he said. “If you took that away, we might not be talking about this subject right now.”

The resulting ceasefire marked another chapter in Trump’s effort to recast the Middle East’s balance of power. Over the past nine months, he has struck Iranian nuclear sites, weakened Tehran’s influence, and overseen the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. “Trump is coming back and saying: We’re going to re-establish America’s hegemony here. And he’s done it—so far,” said former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren.

Despite the fragile calm, Hamas has yet to return the bodies of all murdered Israeli hostages, leading Israel to restrict aid into Gaza. New clashes have already tested the truce, prompting Trump to send Vice President Vance back to the region to help preserve the deal.

The next challenge, Trump officials acknowledge, will be determining who governs Gaza and how to disarm Hamas. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro warned that the outcome could be “a frozen conflict…with Israel controlling half of Gaza, Hamas controlling the other half, suppressing its own people, and no real reconstruction.”

Trump insists that his leadership—and willingness to use force—made all this possible. “It would have been impossible to make a deal like this before,” he said, referring to his strikes on Iran. “No President was willing to do it, and I was willing to do it. And by doing it, we had a different Middle East.”

The President predicted that Saudi Arabia would normalize ties with Israel by the end of the year, saying the kingdom “had a Gaza problem and an Iran problem. Now they don’t have those two problems.”

Looking ahead, Trump envisions a more connected Middle East, with new trade routes, shared energy infrastructure, and even Saudi tourists visiting Tel Aviv. But he said one factor remains essential: “The most important thing is they have to respect the President of the United States. The Middle East has to understand that. It’s almost the President more than the country.”

Asked whether Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas might take charge of Gaza, Trump replied, “I’ve always found him reasonable, but he’s probably not… I’d really have to find out.” He added that Gaza currently “doesn’t have a leader,” since “every one of those leaders has been shot and killed. It’s not a hot job.”

The annexation debate, Netanyahu’s domestic pressures, and Trump’s push to cement a new regional order have now converged into a defining test of his second term—one that could determine whether the Gaza ceasefire endures or collapses under political strain.