Tel Aviv, Aug 20: Israel gave final approval for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two, and that Palestinians and rights groups say could destroy plans for a future Palestinian state.
Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to US pressure during previous administrations.
On Wednesday, the project received final approval from the Planning and Building Committee after the last petitions against it were rejected on August 6.
If the process moves quickly, infrastructure work could begin in the next few months and construction of homes could start in around a year.
The plan includes around 3,500 apartments to expand the settlement of Maale Adumim, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a press conference at the site last Thursday.
Smotrich cast the approval as a riposte to western countries that announced their plans to recognise a Palestinian state in recent weeks.
“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” Smotrich told reporters.
The location of E1 is significant because it is one of the last geographical links between Ramallah, in the northern West Bank, and Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. (AP)
