UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada condemn Israel's West Bank settlement project — SkimNews
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- Israel's housing ministry issued a tender on Wednesday for 1,234 of 3,401 approved housing units in the E1 area — about 12 sq km between East Jerusalem and the Ma'ale Adumim settlement
- UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada issued a joint statement calling the plans 'unacceptable' and urging Israel to 'retract the plans immediately,' citing 'grave instability' and settler violence in the West Bank
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres separately said the E1 plan posed an 'existential threat' to a contiguous Palestinian state, with Belgium's foreign minister echoing the condemnation
- UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband drew 'outright' rejection from Israel's foreign minister after his earlier condemnation on Thursday
- Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist settler, declared when the plans were unveiled that the idea of a Palestinian state was 'being erased'
- The bid deadline lands on 19 October — just eight days before Israel's 27 October general election — making any issued tenders nearly impossible for a future government to overturn
- Israel has built roughly 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, alongside an estimated 3.3 million Palestinians, with expansion accelerating sharply since Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022
Why it matters: The E1 corridor is the linchpin of Palestinian contiguity between Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem — building there would split the West Bank in two, which is why allies held this back for decades. The 19 October bid deadline, set deliberately days before Israel's election, hands the settler wing a fait accompli that any incoming government would struggle to reverse, even as a five-nation coalition (plus UN and Belgium) publicly isolates Israel on the international stage.
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