Star Metro - Israel approves major West Bank settlement project

Israel has long had ambitions to build on the roughly 12-square-kilometre (five-square-mile) parcel known as E1 just east of Jerusalem, but the plan had been stalled for years amid international opposition.

The latest announcement also drew condemnation, with UN chief Antonio Guterres saying the settlement would effectively cleave the West Bank in two and pose an "existential threat" to a contiguous Palestinian state.

Last week, Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich backed plans to build around 3,400 homes on the ultra-sensitive tract of land, which lies between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.

"I am pleased to announce that just a short while ago, the civil administration approved the planning for the construction of the E1 neighbourhood," the mayor of Maale Adumim, Guy Yifrach, said in a statement on Wednesday.

All of Israel's settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of whether they have Israeli planning permission.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) slammed the latest move.

"This undermines the chances of implementing the two-state solution, establishing a Palestinian state on the ground, and fragments its geographic and demographic unity," the PA's foreign ministry said in a statement.

It added the move would entrench "division of the occupied West Bank into isolated areas and cantons that are disconnected from one another, turning them into something akin to real prisons, where movement is only possible through Israeli checkpoints and under the terror of armed settler militias".

Israel heavily restricts the movement of West Bank Palestinians, who must obtain permits from authorities to travel through checkpoints to cross into east Jerusalem or Israel.

Guterres repeated a call for Israel to "immediately halt all settlement activity", warning that the E1 project would be "an existential threat to the two-State solution", his spokesperson said.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy also rejected the plans, saying it would "divide a Palestinian state in two (and) mark a flagrant breach of international law".

Jordan's King Abdullah II denounced the project as well, adding that "the two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and comprehensive peace".

- 'Bury' Palestinian statehood -

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

Since then, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 971 Palestinians in the West Bank, including many militants, according to health ministry figures.

Over the same period, at least 36 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official figures.

Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli NGO focusing on Jerusalem within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, condemned the greenlighting of the E1 project.

"Today's approval demonstrates how determined Israel is in pursuing what Minister Smotrich has described as a strategic programme to bury the possibility of a Palestinian state and to effectively annex the West Bank," he said.

"This is a conscious Israeli choice to implement an apartheid regime," he added, calling on the international community to take urgent and effective measures against the move.

Far-right Israeli ministers have in recent months openly called for Israel's annexation of the territory.

Israeli NGO Peace Now, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, said last week that infrastructure work in E1 could begin within a few months, and housing construction within about a year.

Excluding east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to around three million Palestinians, as well as about 500,000 Israeli settlers.

L.Pelletier--SMC