Arab foreign ministers condemned a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the Jordan Valley as "aggression" undermining any chances of a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
"If I am elected, we intend to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area," Netanyahu said at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening.
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"Along with applying sovereignty during the next Knesset, I will present the next government with a broad plan to bolster Jewish settlement in the Jordan Valley and develop infrastructure," the prime minister said.
"We have a historic opportunity," he told the audience, adding that he would wait for the Trump administration to announce its "deal of the century" before announcing any major Israeli policy changes.
The Arab League "considers his announcement a dangerous development and a new Israeli aggression by declaring the intention to violate international law," Arab foreign ministers said in a statement after a meeting in Cairo.
"The league regards these statements as undermining the chances of any progress in the peace process and will torpedo all its foundations," the statement said.
Arab foreign ministers had been holding a meeting in Cairo, the seat of the Arab League, but added an emergency session after Netanyahu made his comments on live television.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Twitter called Netanyahu's plan a "serious escalation." Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab states to have peace treaties with Israel.
Saudi Arabia condemned Netanyahu's announcement as "baseless," state news agency SPA reported on early Wednesday, citing the Royal Court.
The Kingdom also said it considered the prime minister's declaration a "very dangerous escalation against the Palestinians" and said that it "violated international law."
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote on Twitter that the Israeli premier was out to impose a "greater Israel on all of historical Palestine and [carry] out an ethnic cleansing agenda."
Netanyahu also reaffirmed a pledge to annex all of the settlements that Israel has established in Judea and Samaria.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said in early May that he hoped Israel would take a hard look at US President Donald Trump's upcoming Middle East peace proposal before "proceeding with any plan" to annex parts of Judea and Samaria.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak spoke to Channel 12 ahead of the conference and called Netanyahu's announcement election posturing and said that it was a gambit to sway voters after his proposal to set up cameras at polling stations was scuppered.
