London, England – Foreign ministers of 21 countries issued a joint statement on Thursday urging the “immediate reversal” of the Israeli government plan to build new settlements next to East Jerusalem.
“The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” said the statement released by the United Kingdom government.
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“We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms,” added the text signed by the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas, along with the foreign ministers of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Slovenia.
Additionally, the United Kingdom summoned Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely in response to the Israeli Higher Planning Committee’s decision to approve settlements next to East Jerusalem.
The plan calls for the construction of 3,410 housing units in E1, a 1,200-hectare plot of land in East Jerusalem, an area inhabited by Palestinian Bedouin communities.
The project, part of the settlement of Maale Adumim, which has 40,000 inhabitants, also includes a road to separate Palestinian and Israeli traffic and a new location for the military checkpoint to enter East Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of the city that Israel unilaterally annexed in 1980.
The Defense Ministry also approved 342 housing units in the new Asael settlement, a former outpost in the southern West Bank built without government authorization and legalized in May.
In this regard, Thursday’s statement warned about Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s declarations that this plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem.
“This brings no benefits to the Israeli people. Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace,” the 21 signatories pointed out.
“Unilateral action by the Israeli government undermines our collective desire for security and prosperity in the Middle East. The Israeli government must stop settlement construction in line with UNSC Resolution 2334 and remove its restrictions on the finances of the Palestinian Authority,”they added.
Prior to 2020, plans for E1 had been frozen for years due to international opposition.
Opponents of the project warned that it would cut off the north of the West Bank and prevent the development of a contiguous Palestinian urban area connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.
Since occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 people.
An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside these settlements, which are illegal under international law.
Israeli settlements have grown significantly since late 2022, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pro-settler coalition came to power, a period that also saw the start of the Gaza war following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
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