Tel Aviv, Israel - Israel's extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed on Monday to annex Israeli settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank next year, calling Donald Trump's return to the White House "an important opportunity".

"The year 2025 will be, with God's help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," the self-described fascist said, using the biblical name for the West Bank.

Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank since 1967, instituting a system of apartheid and depriving Palestinians of civil and political rights.

Smotrich, whose ministerial portfolio includes administering the occupation, said he had ordered preparations for "applying sovereignty" over Israeli settlements.

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Speaking at a meeting in parliament, he said he had "instructed the director of settlement affairs in the defence ministry and the Civil Administration... to prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty".

Smotrich congratulated US President-elect Donald Trump on his "incredible and sweeping victory", which he said said "also brings an important opportunity for the State of Israel".

"During his first term, President Trump led dramatic moves," Smotrich said.

These included recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the ilegally occupied Golan Heights, breaking with much of the international community by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, and brokering a set of normalization deals between Israel and several Arab countries.

Before the normalization agreements, dubbed the Abraham Accords, the Israeli government had said it would annex large Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank, but then scrapped the plan as the deals were announced.

"We were on the verge of applying sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria," Smotrich said. "Now it is time to do it."

He said he would push the government to work together with the new US administration on the matter.

Earlier on Monday, Israel's newly appointed Foreign Minister Gideon Saar again denied Palestinians' right to statehood, after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas reiterated his demand for a sovereign country.

"I don't think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic," Saar told reporters.

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned Saar's remarks as an "extension of the war of extermination and displacement against our people".

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It also said the comments were in "disregard for international legitimacy... and the international consensus on the two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Excluding east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to three million Palestinians alongside around 500,000 Israelis living in settlement that are illegal under international law.

Many of them act in concert with Israeli military forces to harass and violently displace Palestinians from their lands, killing hundreds in a year which has seen a genocidal onslaught on Gaza.