The Israel E1 project plans to fill the “ideas of the Palestinian state.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced plans to build housing for the E1 settlement project on the occupied West Bank of Palestine.
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JERUSALEM, Aug. 20 (Reuters) – A widely condemned Israeli settlement plan to cut off land seeking the state on Wednesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezarel Smotrich said.
Approval for the E1 project, which was cut off from East Jerusalem by bisecting the occupied West Bank, was announced last week by Smotrich and received the final Go-Ahead from the Ministry of Defense Planning Commission on Wednesday, he said.
“With E1, you’re finally delivering what’s been promised over the years,” Smotrich, the dominant right-wing coalition ultranationalist, said in a statement. “The Palestinian state has been erased from the table, and there is action, not slogans.”
The reopening of the project could further quarantine Israel. Israel has seen Western allies dissatisfied with the continued and planned escalation of the Gaza War, which announced at the UN General Assembly in September that it may recognize the Palestinian state.
“We condemn the decision made today regarding expanding this particular settlement. “We call on the Israeli government to halt all settlement activities.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also denounced the announcement, saying the E1 settlement would segregate Palestinian communities living in the region and undermine the possibility of a solution for the two states.
British Foreign Minister David Lamy said in X: “If implemented, it will divide the Palestinian state into two, marking a serious violation of international law and critically undermining the two states’ solutions.”
A German government spokesman told reporters that the settlement would violate international law and “threatening the two negotiated states’ solutions and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented on the announcement of E1.
However, on Sunday, during a visit to Ophra, another West Bank settlement, which was established a quarter century ago, said that “we will do everything 25 years ago to secure a grip on the land of Israel, and that we will do everything to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, and to prevent all attempts to umpfroze us from here. Thank God.
The two states’ solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict decades ago envision the Palestinian states of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, which exist alongside Israel.
The western capital and campaign groups are opposed to the settlement project due to concerns that it could undermine future peace deals with Palestinians.
The E1 plan, adjacent to Maale Adumim and frozen in 2012 and 2020 amid objections from the US and European governments, includes the construction of around 3,400 new housing units.
According to Israeli advocacy group Now Now, infrastructure work to track West Bank settlement activities could begin within months, with the home building likely to begin in about a year.
Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank that are illegal under international law.
Israel disputes this, citing historic and biblical ties to the region, saying the settlement offers strategic depth and security.
(Reporting by Lili Bayer and Mayan Lebel of Jerusalem, Ali Sawafuta of Ramala, Rachel More of Berlin, Michelle Nichols of UN, and Rod Nickel of Aidan Lewis)
