![Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives an address from his office in Jerusalem on 3 April 2019, announcing that the remains of Sergeant First Class Zachary Baumel, a soldier missing since the 1982 Lebanon war, had been returned to the country. [MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/GettyImages-1134662078.jpg?fit=1024%2C633&ssl=1)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the new Israeli coalition government should extend the state’s sovereignty over the occupied West Bank, local media reported yesterday .
“It’s time to apply the Israeli law and write another glorious chapter in the history of Zionism,” Netanyahu said during a meeting for the Knesset General Commission to discuss the swearing in of the new coalition government.
“These territories [illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank] are where the Jewish nation was born and grew,” he said of the settlements.
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This, he added, “will not distance us from peace, it will bring us closer.”
The Likud leader signed a deal with his rival Benny Gantz of the Blue and White alliance to form a coalition government based on the agreement to annex the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Arab and Meretz MKs heckled Netanyahu repeatedly during his speech at the Knesset and screamed: “bribery, fraud and breach of trust,” referring to the corruption charges against him.