GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
As February 2026 begins, the fragile Gaza ceasefire — brokered in October 2025 — faces its most serious structural threat yet, not from the rubble of Gaza itself, but from the occupied hills of the West Bank. Israel’s unilateral land regulation measures, characterised by senior officials as amounting to ‘de facto sovereignty’, have drawn near-universal international censure, triggered an emergency UN Security Council session, and placed the very architecture of the two-state solution in jeopardy. For Singapore — a small, trade-dependent city-state with deep economic ties to the Gulf, a significant Muslim population, and a principled commitment to rules-based international order — the ramifications extend well beyond diplomatic optics.
I. The West Bank Moves: What Israel Has Actually Done
On February 8, 2026, Israel’s security cabinet approved a sweeping set of administrative measures affecting the occupied West Bank. While Israeli officials have been careful to avoid the word ‘annexation’ in official communiqués, the substance of the measures leaves little room for interpretive ambiguity. The decisions establish a formal procedure for identifying and cataloguing privately owned Palestinian lands, reclassifying them under Israeli state administration, and extending Israeli civil regulatory frameworks — governing construction, land use, and municipal management — across broad swaths of the territory.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen publicly described the measures as amounting to ‘de facto sovereignty,’ a formulation that was seized upon by critics as an admission of the measures’ true intent. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went further, pledging to ‘encourage’ Palestinian emigration out of the West Bank — language that the UN and several governments have characterised as incitement and a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on forced population transfers.
These measures build upon a longer trajectory of ‘creeping annexation.’ In July 2025, the Knesset passed a resolution formally supporting West Bank annexation. In October 2025, an annexation bill received preliminary parliamentary passage in a narrow 25–24 vote, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — anxious not to destabilise the concurrent Gaza ceasefire negotiations — characterised it as a ‘deliberate political provocation.’ The February 2026 cabinet decisions represent something qualitatively different: administrative implementation rather than rhetorical posturing. Critically, they directly contradict the terms of the Oslo Accords, which had designated Area A of the West Bank as under primary Palestinian Authority control. The new measures reportedly repeal restrictions that had long prevented Israeli citizens from purchasing land in Area A.
“Annexation is a breach of the UN Charter and of the most fundamental rules of international law. It is a breach of President Trump’s plan and constitutes an existential threat to ongoing peace efforts.”
— Riyad Mansour, Palestinian UN Ambassador, February 18, 2026
The moves have provoked an unusually unified international response. Eighty countries co-signed a UN statement demanding Israel reverse its West Bank actions. The UN Security Council convened an emergency session on February 18, 2026 — a session rescheduled from February 19 specifically to avoid clash with the inaugural meeting of President Trump’s Board of Peace. The UN’s own Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Ramiz Alakbarov, issued unusually blunt language characterising Israel’s trajectory as ‘gradual de facto annexation.’ Perhaps most significantly, a group of over 600 former Israeli defence and intelligence officials — including former Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs — wrote directly to Netanyahu warning that the moves risked unravelling the Gaza ceasefire’s second phase and provoking a rupture with the Trump administration.
II. The Gaza Ceasefire: Anatomy of a Fragile Architecture
The ceasefire that took effect on October 10, 2025, represented a significant diplomatic achievement, brokered by the United States under the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Phase One of the agreement provided for an immediate cessation of major combat operations, the release of all hostages held by Hamas (the body of the final hostage was recovered in late January 2026), a marked increase in humanitarian aid flows, and an Israeli Defence Forces withdrawal to the so-called ‘yellow line’ inside Gaza.
The ceasefire’s structure — a 20-point framework endorsed by the UN Security Council in November 2025 — is architecturally sequential. Phase Two, whose commencement Witkoff announced in January 2026, is intended to address the more consequential questions: the full demilitarisation of Hamas, the deployment of an international security force, the establishment of a new governance framework for Gaza through the Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, and ultimately the contours of a long-term political settlement. Each of these steps is politically contingent on the maintenance of sufficient trust among all parties.
Herein lies the structural vulnerability that Israel’s West Bank measures have exposed. The Palestinian Authority, moderate Arab states, and the broader international community have long maintained that credible progress toward a two-state solution is the indispensable political framework within which a Gaza settlement must be embedded. Without it, any governance or reconstruction arrangement for Gaza risks being characterised — and rejected — as a mechanism for permanently separating Palestinian political aspirations from any coherent territorial expression.
The Hamas Disarmament Dilemma
Phase Two requires the disarming of Hamas — a group that Israeli officials estimate retains thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and tens of thousands of assault rifles. Hamas has signalled conditional willingness to disarm, but only if Israeli forces withdraw from Gaza and there is credible movement toward Palestinian statehood. Israel’s West Bank measures cut directly against that conditionality. If the political horizon for statehood recedes, the political cost for Hamas of relinquishing its military capacity rises correspondingly.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, speaking at the February 18 Security Council session, maintained that ‘Hamas must be dismantled completely’ and dismissed concerns about the West Bank as distraction. But former senior IDF and intelligence officials — grouped in the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) organisation — have offered a starkly contrary assessment, warning that the timing of the cabinet’s West Bank decisions ‘raises questions about the judgment of the cabinet and its leadership’ and that the measures ‘may be perceived as yet another attempt to disrupt President Trump’s efforts.’
III. The Board of Peace: A Rival Architecture?
The overlap between the UN Security Council’s emergency Middle East session and Trump’s inaugural Board of Peace meeting on February 19 was not merely a scheduling inconvenience. It crystallises a broader structural tension in the post-October 2025 diplomatic landscape: the potential emergence of a parallel international governance architecture that operates alongside — or in competition with — established multilateral institutions.
Trump established the Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22, 2026, initially framing it as a supervisory body for his 20-point Gaza plan. He has since broadened its stated mandate to mediation of global conflicts more generally — an ambition that has generated scepticism among close US allies. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have all declined to join the Board, reaffirming instead their support for the UN Security Council as the primary forum for international peace and security matters.
Over twenty countries have accepted invitations to join the Board, including Pakistan — the only UNSC member to do so. Indonesia’s participation is particularly notable given the scale of its potential military contribution: Jakarta has indicated that up to 8,000 Indonesian troops could be ready for deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission by the end of June 2026. The Board’s members have reportedly pledged $5 billion toward Gaza reconstruction, though verification of these commitments and their implementation mechanisms remains limited.
“The old ways were not working. Unlike the Security Council, the Board is not talking — it is doing.”
— Mike Waltz, US Ambassador to the UN, February 2026
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz explicitly framed the Board as an action-oriented contrast to the deliberative pace of the Security Council. This framing — and the structural incentive it creates for sideling UN processes — has broader implications for the rules-based international order that small states like Singapore depend upon for their security and sovereignty. The concern is not merely procedural: if major powers selectively validate international institutions based on outcome preference, the normative foundations of international law weaken for all states, but especially for the small and the non-aligned.
IV. International Legal Dimensions
The international legal status of Israel’s West Bank activities has been addressed comprehensively and with increasing urgency by authoritative international bodies. The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion in July 2024 declaring Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories unlawful and calling for its termination, citing violations of the right to self-determination, the prohibition on racial discrimination, and relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The UN General Assembly subsequently adopted a resolution demanding Israeli withdrawal.
The February 2026 cabinet measures are widely regarded by international legal scholars as accelerating a trajectory of de facto annexation that the ICJ had already characterised as illegal. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, the UN Charter’s prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force, and the Fourth Geneva Convention’s protections for occupied populations are all implicated. Israel’s position — that its ‘historical and documented right to the land of the Bible’ supersedes these frameworks — has no basis in the positive international law accepted by the overwhelming majority of states.
Critically, even the Trump administration — which has been significantly more tolerant of Israeli West Bank expansion than prior US administrations — has publicly confirmed, through a Jordan’s delegate speaking at the UNSC, that President Trump opposes full annexation. The legal and diplomatic isolation created by the February 2026 measures thus extends beyond the predictable critics.
V. Implications for Singapore: A Multi-Dimensional Analysis
A. Diplomatic and Foreign Policy Position
Singapore’s engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has grown markedly more assertive since 2024, tracking the escalation of the conflict itself. From an initial position of measured condemnation of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks and calls for restraint, Singapore has progressively sharpened its public posture in response to the scope and duration of Israel’s military campaign and, latterly, its West Bank measures.
In July 2025, Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs publicly condemned Israel for the first time, characterising the denial of humanitarian aid to Gaza as ‘a violation of international humanitarian law.’ At a UN conference that same month, Deputy Secretary Kevin Cheok announced that Singapore was ‘prepared in principle’ to recognise Palestine as a state, subject to conditions including the establishment of an effective Palestinian government that renounces terrorism and accepts Israel’s right to exist. In September 2025, Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan — in a notably candid parliamentary address — said Singapore’s position was ‘not if, but when’ regarding Palestinian recognition.
The most concrete step came in November 2025, when Singapore imposed targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on four Israeli settlers implicated in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. This represented a significant departure from Singapore’s historically cautious approach to sanctions, particularly notable given Singapore’s status as a global financial hub.
“If the situation continues to deteriorate, or if Israel takes further steps to make it well-nigh impossible, we will have to recompute.”
— Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister, September 2025
Israel’s February 2026 West Bank moves represent precisely the kind of escalatory unilateral action that Minister Balakrishnan had identified as a potential trigger for Singapore to ‘recompute’ its position. The question is whether Singapore will now move to recognise the Palestinian state, expand its sanctions regime, or both — and how it balances that against its bilateral relationship with Israel, with which it has maintained diplomatic ties since 1969 and established a formal embassy in Tel Aviv in 2022.
The broader principle at stake for Singapore’s foreign policy is the integrity of rules-based international order. Minister Balakrishnan articulated this directly in September 2025 when an MP raised the point that ‘Singapore is a small entity’ and that ‘small countries like ours rely on international law for survival.’ The erosion of the principle that territory cannot be acquired by force — however incremental — creates precedents that potentially redound to Singapore’s own existential security considerations, given its size and the sensitivities of its relationships with larger regional neighbours.
B. Economic and Trade Exposure
Singapore’s direct bilateral trade with Israel, while meaningful, is not of a scale that would create major economic disruption through sanctions or diplomatic downgrade. The more consequential economic exposure operates through Singapore’s deep and growing commercial relationships with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, whose attitudes toward the Palestinian question are central to regional politics and whose sovereign wealth funds and trade flows are significant to Singapore’s economy.
The GCC-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, which incorporates extensive services provisions covering finance, maritime transport, and telecommunications, has been a cornerstone of Singapore’s regional economic architecture for decades. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman collectively represent major sources of investment into Singapore’s financial markets, real estate, and logistics sector. A deterioration of the Israeli-Palestinian situation that inflames Arab public opinion — or that leads Gulf states to adopt more aggressive economic measures against countries seen as complicit in Israeli policy — could create indirect pressure on Singapore’s positioning as a neutral financial hub for the region.
Singapore is also the world’s fifth-largest refinery and petrochemical export hub. An escalation in the Middle East that disrupts oil production or shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would affect global energy prices with direct upstream and downstream effects on Singapore’s refining economics and broader inflation profile. PwC’s November 2025 Middle East Economy Watch noted that the October 2025 ceasefire, if sustained, would provide meaningful economic benefits not only to Gaza but to Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon — all of which are significant economic partners for regional stability. A collapse of that ceasefire would reverse those gains.
The Suez Canal dimension is also pertinent. Egypt’s economy — which grew by 4.9% in the first half of 2025 — had benefited from currency and structural reforms, but the Gaza war has hurt Suez Canal traffic. Further instability would exacerbate those effects, with implications for the global shipping lanes that Singapore’s port infrastructure and logistics economy depend upon.
C. Domestic Social Cohesion
Singapore’s demographic composition — approximately 14-15% Muslim, primarily Malay — means that the Palestinian issue carries domestic resonance of a kind that many Western states do not face. The government has historically navigated this with considerable care, framing its positions in terms of international law and humanitarian principle rather than religious solidarity, while being attentive to the depth of feeling among Singaporean Muslims.
Minister Balakrishnan’s September 2025 parliamentary address was notable for its candour on this dimension. His observation that Singapore’s zero tolerance for terrorism was a matter of ‘national interest’ — not merely foreign policy — reflected the government’s longstanding concern about radicalisation risks, the influence of Gulf-sourced Islamic currents, and the importance of maintaining interfaith social cohesion. These concerns are not hypothetical: the Singapore Internal Security Department has consistently flagged the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as among the most potent external catalysts for domestic radicalisation.
As Israel’s West Bank moves escalate, the challenge for Singapore’s government is to maintain a principled position that satisfies the conscience of its Muslim citizens and upholds Singapore’s international law commitments, without precipitating either a diplomatic rupture with key bilateral partners or a domestic inter-communal fault line. The targeted sanctions approach — focused on specific settlers rather than on Israel as a state — has thus far represented a carefully calibrated middle path. Whether that calibration remains tenable as the West Bank situation intensifies is an open question.
D. Multilateralism and the UN System
Perhaps the most structurally significant dimension of these developments for Singapore is the challenge they pose to the multilateral rules-based order. Singapore has consistently been among the most articulate advocates for that order — not from sentimentality, but from rational self-interest: a small state with no hard power to speak of depends upon the consistent application of international law as the foundation of its security.
The emergence of Trump’s Board of Peace as a potential rival to the UN Security Council creates a dilemma for Singapore. Singapore has not publicly declared whether it will join the Board. The Board’s membership of over twenty states, combined with the Indonesian military commitment and the $5 billion reconstruction pledge, represents a potentially significant operational alternative to UN-led processes. But the Board’s structure — chaired indefinitely by the US President, with membership partly determined by political alignment — raises legitimate questions about whether it constitutes a principled multilateral mechanism or a vehicle for major-power preference.
Singapore’s long history of supporting and engaging constructively with UN processes, combined with its careful management of relations with both the US and with Arab states, suggests that it is likely to continue prioritising the Security Council framework while engaging pragmatically with the Board’s activities. But the structural tension between these two frameworks is likely to grow, requiring Singapore to make increasingly explicit choices about which norms and institutions it privileges.
VI. Scenarios and Outlook
Scenario 1: Partial Rollback — Minimal Ceasefire Disruption
Under pressure from Washington, Israel partially suspends or moderates implementation of the West Bank measures. Phase Two ceasefire negotiations proceed, albeit with difficulty. Singapore maintains its current calibrated posture — targeted sanctions, rhetorical condemnation, conditional Palestinian recognition threshold. This is the most optimistic scenario but requires Netanyahu to overrule his far-right coalition partners.
Scenario 2: West Bank Escalation, Gaza Ceasefire Holds
Israel continues West Bank land registration while Phase Two negotiations proceed in parallel. Hamas uses the West Bank situation as political cover to delay disarmament commitments. The ceasefire technically holds but Phase Two implementation stalls. Singapore comes under increasing domestic and international pressure to recognise the Palestinian state and expand sanctions. The Board of Peace and UN Security Council operate in parallel with growing tension.
Scenario 3: Ceasefire Collapse and Regional Escalation
Phase Two fails; Hamas rearms; Israeli forces re-engage militarily in Gaza; West Bank settler violence intensifies. Regional Arab states face intense public pressure to escalate economic and diplomatic responses. Oil markets spike. Suez Canal traffic falls further. Singapore faces severe pressure to choose sides and the Board of Peace-vs-UN framework becomes a genuine structural rupture in international order. Domestic social cohesion pressures in Singapore intensify significantly.
VII. Conclusion
The Israeli government’s February 2026 West Bank measures represent more than a bilateral dispute about land registration in an occupied territory. They are a stress test of the entire post-October 2025 ceasefire architecture, of the viability of the two-state solution as a political horizon, and of the capacity of the international rules-based order to impose meaningful constraints on the unilateral actions of powerful states.
For Singapore, the implications are simultaneously diplomatic, economic, domestic, and principled. The city-state has progressively sharpened its public position since 2024 in ways that reflect genuine governmental conviction as well as political realism about the domestic and international audiences it must manage. The language of Foreign Affairs Minister Balakrishnan — ‘not if, but when’ on Palestinian recognition; targeted sanctions as a ‘principled move’; the explicit invocation of Singapore’s own vulnerability as a small state — signals a government that understands the structural stakes.
The coming weeks, as Phase Two negotiations either advance or stall, as the Board of Peace holds its inaugural meetings, and as UN pressure on Israel mounts, will reveal whether the fragile architecture of the October 2025 ceasefire can survive the political pressures now bearing down upon it from the West Bank. Singapore will be watching — and recalibrating — closely.
Sources consulted include: UN Security Council press releases (February 18–19, 2026); Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs press statements (2025–2026); Al Jazeera, Associated Press, Chicago Tribune, Jerusalem Post, House of Commons Library (Gaza 2026 briefing); PwC Middle East Economy Watch (November 2025); DBS Vickers Economics; EY-Parthenon Geostrategy reports; Wikipedia (Israel-Singapore Relations; Proposed Israeli Annexation of the West Bank).