Israel's plan for the so-called E1 area on the Israeli-occupied West Bank has been given the green light, reports the newspaper Haaretz.
The approved expansion of the Israeli settlement Ma'ale Adumim is expected to have dramatic consequences for a future two-state solution. In practice, the measure means that the Palestinian area is divided into two.
The Palestinian state is being erased – not with slogans, but with actions, says the far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich according to Haaretz.
Thousands of homes
In total, it involves 3,400 new Israeli homes.
The Palestinian Authority condemns the approval, which it believes will make Palestinian communities on the West Bank so isolated that they can be equated with prisons.
”Movement between them will only be possible via the occupation's roadblocks and through the terror of armed settler militias”, it says in a statement on X.
The EU has previously warned of far-reaching consequences if Israel's plans are implemented.
”Israel's decision to proceed with the settlement plan further undermines the two-state solution while violating international law”, said the union's foreign chief Kaja Kallas in a statement last week.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres went a step further and warned that the construction would ”put an end to" a two-state solution.
Over 30,000 inhabitants
Ma'ale Adumim was founded in the 1970s and today has over 30,000 inhabitants. However, it has not yet been built up so much that the northern and southern West Bank have been separated from each other. It is considered a fundamental principle for a Palestinian state-building that Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, and Bethlehem south of it are geographically connected.
Earlier in August, in response to several countries announcing their intention to recognize Palestine as a state, Smotrich said that ”Europe's hypocritical leaders will not have anything to recognize” in September.
The West Bank, with the exception of East Jerusalem, is home to around three million Palestinians and half a million Israeli settlers. All Israeli settlements on the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law.
