Israel gave final approval on Wednesday, 20, to a controversial settlement project in the busy West Bank that would effectively divide the territory in two, and which Palestinians and human rights groups say it could destroy the hopes of a future Palestinian state.
The development of settlements in E1, an open area east of Jerusalem, has been considered for over two decades, but has been frozen due to US pressure during previous governments. The international community considers, for the most part, the construction of Israeli settlements in the illegal Somble and an obstacle to peace.
The far -right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has classified approval as a setback to Western countries that have announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks.
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“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans, but with actions,” he said on Wednesday. “Each settlement, each neighborhood, each housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and promised to maintain unlimited control over the busy, East Jerusalem attached, and the War War Strip-Territories that Israel took in the 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for their state.
The expansion of Israeli settlements is part of an increasingly serious reality for Palestinians in occupied West Bank, with world care for war in Gaza. There was a sharp increase in the attacks of settlers against Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian cities, Israeli military operations and control posts that prevent freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks against Israeli.
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More than 700,000 Israeli settlers currently live in West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The location of E1 is significant because it is one of the last geographical connections between the main cities of West Bank: Ramallah, in the North, and Belém, in the South.
The two cities are 22 kilometers away, but the Palestinians traveling between them need to make a broad deviation and go through several Israeli control posts, spending hours on the trip. The hope was that, in a possible Palestinian condition, the region served as a direct connection between cities.
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“The settlement in E1 has no purpose but to sabotage a political solution,” said Peace Now, an organization that monitors the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. “Although the consensus among our friends in the world is to fight for peace and a solution of two states, a government that has long lost the confidence of the people is undermining the national interest, and we are all paying the price.”
