Israel approves major West Bank settlement project

JERUSALEM: A widely condemned Israeli settlement plan that would cut across land which the Palestinians seek for a state received final approval on Wednesday (Aug 20), according to a statement from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Israel has long had ambitions to build on the roughly 12 sq km parcel known as E1 just east of Jerusalem, but the plan had been stalled for years amid international opposition.

The approval of the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, was announced last week by Smotrich and received final go-ahead from a defence ministry planning commission on Wednesday, he said.

Restarting the project could further isolate Israel, which has watched some Western allies frustrated by its continuation and planned escalation of the Gaza war, announce they may recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

"With E1 we are delivering finally on what has been promised for years," Smotrich, an ultra-nationalist in the ruling right-wing coalition, said in a statement. "The Palestinian state is being erased from the table, not with slogans but with actions."

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.

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the announcement on Wednesday, saying that the E1 settlement would isolate Palestinian communities living in the area and undermine the possibility of a two-state solution.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) added that 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".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented on the E1 announcement.

However on Sunday, during a visit to Ofra, another West Bank settlement established a quarter of a century ago, he made broader comments, saying: "I said 25 years ago that we will do everything to secure our grip on the Land of Israel, to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, to prevent the attempts to uproot us from here. Thank God, what I promised, we have delivered."

The two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict envisages a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, existing side by side with Israel.

Western capitals and campaign groups have opposed the settlement project due to concerns that it could undermine a future peace deal with the Palestinians.

The plan for E1, located adjacent to Maale Adumim and frozen in 2012 and 2020 amid objections from the US and European governments, involves the construction of about 3,400 new housing units.

Infrastructure work could begin within a few months, and house building in about a year, according to Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, which tracks settlement activity in the West Bank.

Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law.

Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the area and saying the settlements provide strategic depth and security.

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.

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.

A German government spokesperson commenting on the announcement told reporters on Wednesday that settlement construction violates international law and "hinders a negotiated two-state solution and an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank".

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".

Israel is attempting to divide up major Palestinian cities through plans like E1 and turn them into "what could be termed reservations", said Ryan Bohl, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst from global risk intelligence firm RANE Network.

"(These are) areas that would be autonomous. They would be run by Palestinian civil and police authorities, but they would have no foreign policy. They would have no real economic or trade policies," he told CNA's Asia First.

"They'd be completely reliant on the Israelis for their well-being, and in between would be Israeli settlements that would be a permanent fact of life there."

What is happening in the West Bank is similar to what the Israeli government's plan for the Gaza Strip is - putting as much military pressure on Gazans before finding host countries to reduce Gaza's population, Bohl said.

"We've seen this in South Sudan, Uganda, Indonesia, Somaliland. They're all contenders, with American pressure, to bring in a limited number of Gaza refugees. It's very likely those Gazans would never go home. The Israeli government would then partially resettle the Gaza Strip with Jewish settlers," he added.

"BURY" PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Oct 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.