The Israeli authorities are progressing with plans to considerably extend illegal regulations in occupied West Bank, despite an increasing international conviction and warnings that this decision would already destroy moribund prospects for a two -state solution.
The Israeli government set for discussion on Wednesday to discuss the construction of thousands of new housing in the E1 region, east of occupied East Jerusalem. The proposed expansion would connect the large and illegal colony of Ma’Ale Adumim with Jerusalem, effectively in the West Bank and insulating the Palestinian communities.
The far -right government of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also appears on the verge of announcing his intention to occupy all Gaza as his genocidal war against the rage besieged enclave.
The E1 plan in the West Bank has long been criticized by the international community, including the European Union and the successive administrations of the United States. In 2022, Israel has postponed the plan that has followed the American pressure, but in recent months, the government has approved road avoidance projects in the region and began to restrict Palestinian access – a move from the rights defense groups indicated a renewed thrust for the control of entrenchment.
The Israeli colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The International Court of Justice, the first United Nations court, reaffirmed this position last year, claiming that the presence of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and must end “as quickly as possible”.
Monday, Germany reiterated its strong opposition to the E1 project.
“We, as a federal government, firmly rejecting the draft regulation E1,” said spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kathrin Deschauer. “What concerns us is that a two -state solution is possible in the long term.”
The plan would see nearly 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) of stolen Palestinian terrains to build more than 4,000 colonization units, as well as hotels and roads connecting Ma’Ale Adumim to Western Jerusalem.
The Palestinians say that the project is one of the wider efforts to “jude” East Jerusalem and anchor Israeli control over the occupied territories in violation of international law.
Palestinian leaders are looking for all of the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip, and as the capital, East Jerusalem – Regions that Israel has captured in the 1967 war – for their future state.
Currently, more than 500,000 settlers live in the West Bank and some 220,000 others in East Jerusalem.
Nida Ibrahim of Tel Aviv Tribune said that the plan has been in preparation since “the early 90s”.
“The plan has been described by American officials … like a devastating and disastrous plan,” said Ibrahim because it threatens the “unity” of a potential Palestinian state.
According to Ibrahim, the Israeli objective is to ensure that there is “no Palestinian state on the ground” at a time when Western and European countries recognize Palestine as a state.
Israel “would cut the West Bank into as different sections, fragments, creating what the Palestinians called as cantons,” she said, predicting that his family would push the Palestinians in “very small communities and in cage”.
Widening of repression in the West Bank
This decision comes in the midst of a broader Israeli repression in occupied West Bank. At least 30 Palestinians were arrested overnight in several cities, including Hebron, Naplus, Bethlehem, Ramallah and Tulkarem, according to the prisoner commission and ex-children of the Palestinian Authority.
Among the detained people were two women, a journalist and several former prisoners. The commission said that more than 18,500 Palestinians had been arrested in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal assault on Gaza in October 2023.
In Bethlehem, residents of the village of Beit Iskaria received forced displacement notices this week while Israeli forces have moved to grasp more land for an expansion of settlement in the block of Etzion. According to the chief of the village council Muhammad Atallah, the soldiers ordered him and his family to leave agricultural land covered with vines within 10 days.
In addition, the Israeli forces carried out demolitions in the agricultural suburbs near the Jalazone refugee camp north of Ramallah, with reports that soldiers were accompanied by colonists. In Dar Salah, east of Bethlehem, a building under construction was demolished by Israeli military vehicles.
According to the rights defense groups, July saw 75 demolitions in the West Bank targeting 122 structures, including 60 houses and dozens of agricultural and subsistence facilities.
In addition to arrests and demolitions, the Palestinians have also increased in settlement attacks in recent months. The armed settlers, often supported by Israeli soldiers, were unleashed through Palestinian villages, burned cultures, vandalized houses and residents attacked with impunity, resulting in several Palestinian deaths.
Rights defense groups and United Nations officials warned that the violence of the colonists has reached record levels, part of what they describe as a coordinated campaign to move Palestinians from the key areas of the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities have issued a six-month ban on the Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian territory, from the entrance to the Al-Aqsa mosque.
According to the WAFA news agency, the governor of Jerusalem, quoting lawyer Khaldoun Najm, said that Hussein’s ban follows the expiration of his eight -day ban.
This most recent ban was imposed after his sermon on Friday, where he condemned Israel’s famine policy against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, Hussein received a first eight -day expulsion order from the mosque.
