UAE warns Israel annexing West Bank would be deemed 'red line'

Sam Dagher, Bloomberg News on Sep 3, 2025

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The United Arab Emirates warned Israel that annexation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank would constitute a “red line” and “severely undermine” the regional vision for peace and integration underlying the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords.

“Annexation in the West Bank would constitute a red line for the UAE,” assistant minister for political affairs at the UAE’s foreign ministry Lana Nusseibeh said in remarks released Wednesday and shared with several media outlets, including Bloomberg News.

The remarks represent the sharpest rebuke the UAE has directed at Israel since the start of the war in Gaza. It comes after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call a Cabinet meeting and approve the extension of Israel’s grip over the West Bank.

Annexing Palestinian territory “would severely undermine the vision and spirit of 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,” Nusseibeh said.

Nusseibeh did not specify what Abu Dhabi would do if Israel went ahead with its plans to annex new territory in the West Bank and whether this would lead to the severing of diplomatic ties between both states. She called on the Israeli government to suspend the plans.

In July, the Israeli parliament passed a resolution calling for the annexation of West Bank settlement blocs, which the prime minister voted in favor of. But he has since been reticent to clarify whether and when this might happen.

Israel and the UAE normalized relations in 2020 as part of the Abraham Accords, which opened the door for Israelis to travel to the oil-rich Gulf state for business and tourism. The agreement earned the UAE political capital in Washington and gave it greater access to U.S. and Israeli technology in sectors including defense and security. U.S. President Donald Trump has said that the expansion of the agreement to other countries, most notably Saudi Arabia, is a key foreign policy goal of his current administration.

UAE’s president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed arrived in Saudi Arabia’s capital on Wednesday and was received by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, state-run WAM reported.

Relations with the UAE have been tested by Israel’s war in Gaza, which it launched against the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the aftermath of the Oct 7, 2023 attack on the Jewish state. Ties have been strained further over the past few weeks over comments made by the Israeli prime minister about his embrace of a vision for “greater Israel.” The Israeli prime minister dispatched one of his top aides to Abu Dhabi last month to ease tensions between both sides.

“Extremists, of any kind, cannot be allowed to dictate the region’s trajectory. Peace requires courage, persistence, and a refusal to let violence define our choices,” Nusseibeh said.

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—With assistance from Dan Williams.