Tel Aviv, Israel - US Vice President JD Vance issued a rare mild rebuke of Israel on Thursday as it advanced a bill formalizing the illegal annexation of the West Bank.

"It was a very stupid political stunt," he said on Thursday at the end of his trip to Tel Aviv, regarding an initial vote by the Israeli parliament on corresponding plans during his visit.

Adding that he felt personally insulted by the move, Vance insisted: "The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel."

An opposition initiative for the annexation of parts of the West Bank received a majority in a preliminary vote in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, but final approval is considered unlikely.

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Ultra-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government have long been advocating for the formal annexation of the West Bank, where Palestinians live under a discriminatory regime of total Israeli control comparable to apartheid.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have already been forced from their homes by Israeli settlers supported by soldiers.

US President Donald Trump – otherwise an enthusiastic backer of Israel's total destruction of Gaza, considered a genocide by a consensus of experts – has also repeatedly drawn a red line at annexations.

"Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened," he said in a Time magazine interview released Thursday.