Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, approved plans overnight for a settlement that would split East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank, a move his office said would bury the idea of a Palestinian state.
It was not immediately clear if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the plan to revive the long-frozen E1 scheme, which Palestinians and world powers have said would effectively lop the West Bank in two and will likely draw international ire.
In a statement headlined “Burying the idea of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich’s spokesperson said the minister would give a news conference later on Thursday about the plan to build 3,401 houses for Israeli settlers between an existing settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Israel had frozen construction plans there since 2012 because of objections from the United States, European allies and other world powers who considered the project a threat to any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
There was no immediate statement from Netanyahu or the broader government. Smotrich’s popularity has fallen in recent months with polls showing his party would not win a single seat if parliamentary elections were held today.
The E1 project would connect the Maale Adumin settlement in the West Bank with Jerusalem. Most of the international community views Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and its military occupation over the region since 1967, as illegal.
Peace Now, which tracks settlement activity in the West Bank, said that the housing ministry had approved the construction of 3,300 homes in Maale Adumin.
“The E1 plan is deadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution. We are standing at the edge of an abyss, and the government is driving us forward at full speed,” Peace Now said in a statement.
The group said there were still steps needed before construction, including the approval of Israel‘s High Planning Council. But if all went through, infrastructure work could begin within a few months, and house building in about a year, it added.
Critics of the E1 project say would split the West Bank, cut off East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want to be their future capital, and make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand imposed sanctions in June on Smotrich and another ultranationalist minister who advocates for settlement expansion, accusing both of them of repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank
Britain and other states have said that Israel must stop expanding settlements in the West Bank. Over the past 22 months, as Israel has waged war in Gaza, rights groups have said settler attacks and settlement expansion in the West Bank has risen sharply.
