Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for a full-scale military offensive in the occupied West Bank, urging the Israeli army to replicate its operations in Gaza. His remarks, published in an interview with Ynet News on Sunday, come approximately one month before Israel's general election.

"I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority," Smotrich said, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

He added: "We need to tell the [Israeli military]: Just as you dismantled Hamas in Gaza, there won't be terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. No terrorists, no weapons, no tunnels."

The Palestinian Authority governs the West Bank under the framework established by the Oslo Accords. Israeli forces have conducted operations in several Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank in recent months.

Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, also called for the annexation of territory under Israeli military control in Gaza, demarcated by the so-called "Yellow Line." Israeli military maps indicate the line extends between 1.5km and 6.5km inside Gaza from its eastern boundary with Israel and covers roughly 58 percent of the enclave.

"I would very much like to annex at least up to the Yellow Line in Gaza and up to the Litani [River] in Lebanon," Smotrich said, also calling for the annexation of southern Lebanon.

He argued that annexing parts of Gaza and Lebanon would make Israel's enemies "pay a price" for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.

The comments drew sharp condemnation from legal experts. Suhad Bishara, legal director of Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said Smotrich's statements went beyond rhetoric.

"Smotrich is not only proposing a 'war' on Palestinians in the West Bank, he is already waging one," Bishara said. "The refugee camps he boasts of having 'cleared out' have been destroyed and their residents forcibly displaced."

"His call to 'do there what we did in Gaza,' where Israel has carried out a genocidal campaign of mass killing, starvation and destruction, is a public declaration of intent to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against Palestinians in the West Bank," she added.

Smotrich has been sanctioned by a number of Western countries, as has his cabinet colleague Itamar Ben-Gvir.

His remarks come amid a reported surge in Israeli and settler violence in the occupied territories and the period leading up to the general election.

Since a ceasefire agreement took effect, Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,408 Palestinians, according to reports. At least 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to the territory's health ministry, with large parts of the enclave reduced to rubble.

A United Nations commission of inquiry panel stated last September that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Legal scholars and campaigners have also characterised Israel's military actions in Gaza as genocide.

Israel continues to occupy southern Lebanon, where Israeli shelling and demolitions have caused widespread destruction.