Trump has sent top officials to Israel in recent days to reinforce the fragile Gaza ceasefire he brokered
A member of the Israeli force stands guard as the Israeli forces block the access of Palestinians and foreign activists to olive trees during the olive harvest, near Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, October 23, 2025.PHOTO: REUTERS
President Donald Trump said Israel would lose its crucial backing from the United States if it annexes the occupied West Bank, in a Time magazine interview published Thursday.
Trump’s comments, which Time said were made by telephone on October 15, were published as both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned against any annexation.
“It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can’t do that now. We’ve had great Arab support,” Trump said when asked what the consequences would be for Israel if it did so.
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“Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”
Trump also told Time that he believed Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords, which normalize relations between Israel and Arab states, by the end of the year.
“Yes, I do. I do,” he said when asked if he thought Riyadh would join in that timeframe.
“See they had a problem. They had a Gaza problem and they had an Iran problem. Now they don’t have those two problems,” he said, referring to Israel’s war in Gaza and Iran’s nuclear program, which US airstrikes targeted earlier this year.
Trump then said that he would be “making a decision” on whether Israel should release high-profile Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti as part of peace moves.
Barghouti — from Hamas’s rival, the Fatah movement — was among the Palestinian prisoners Hamas wanted to see released as part of the Gaza deal, according to Egyptian state-linked media.
Trump has dispatched a stream of top officials to Israel in recent days to shore up the fragile Gaza ceasefire he brokered earlier this month.
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But as Vance wrapped up his three-day visit and Rubio arrived, Israeli lawmakers advanced two bills paving the way for West Bank annexation.
Vance said it was a “very stupid political stunt and I personally take some insult to it.”
As Rubio left Washington he warned Israel against annexing the West Bank, saying steps taken by parliament and settler violence threatened the Gaza truce.
JD Vance warning
US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday warned Israel against annexing the occupied West Bank, saying the move would jeopardize President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan and risk the loss of crucial US backing.
Vance said Trump opposed any annexation and described a recent vote by Israeli lawmakers as a “stupid political stunt” that undermines Washington’s efforts to stabilize the Middle East.
“The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of President Trump is that the West Bank will not be annexed. This will always be our policy,” Vance told reporters at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport at the end of a two-day visit.
Fragile ceasefire, Rubio
Earlier, Rubio cautioned that annexation efforts could endanger Trump’s Gaza plan, which produced a fragile ceasefire after two years of devastating war between Israel and Hamas.
“I think the president’s made clear that’s not something we can be supportive of right now, and we think it’s potentially threatening to the peace deal,” Rubio told reporters late Wednesday before departing for Israel.
The secretary’s visit is the latest by a senior US official seeking to keep alive the truce, which has seen the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the return of bodies of deceased hostages, and a partial Israeli troop withdrawal.
