A Palestinian boy riding a donkey herds goats and sheep near the Israeli settlement of Kedar, in the West Bank, June 30, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Ammar Awad.

Israel’s foreign minister said a move toward the proposed annexation of West Bank land was unlikely on Wednesday, the start date set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for discussing such a move.

“It seems unlikely to me that this will happen today,” Gabi Ashkenazi, a member of the centrist Blue and White party that is a coalition partner of Netanyahu’s conservative Likud, told Israel’s Army Radio.

“I reckon there will be nothing today, regarding (the extension of Israeli) sovereignty.”

Netanyahu and his senior coalition partner, Defense Minister Benny Gantz are at odds over the timing of any unilateral annexation move.

After meeting US envoys on Tuesday to discuss annexation within the framework of US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, Netanyahu said such talks would continue for several days.

Trump’s proposal calls for Israeli sovereignty over about 30 percent of the West Bank, as well as creation of a Palestinian state under strict conditions.

“There are very robust conversations with Israel on the Trump plan,” a US official told Reuters after White House adviser Avi Berkowitz concluded his trip to Israel.

The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and have rejected Trump’s plan, saying it would deny them a viable state.

In an editorial published in Israel’s largest-selling newspaper on Wednesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for any annexation plans to be scrapped.

“Annexation would represent a violation of international law,” Johnson wrote in Yediot Ahronot, echoing remarks he made in parliament on June 16. “I profoundly hope that annexation does not go ahead. If it does, the UK will not recognize any changes to the 1967 lines, except those agreed between both parties.”