Israel pushes ahead with vast illegal settlement in heart of West Bank | West Bank

Israel is moving to begin construction of a vast illegal settlement in the heart of the West Bank designed to “bury the idea of ​​a Palestinian state.”

The Israel Land Authority quietly announced in mid-December a tender for the construction of 3,401 homes in the “E1” project, which would effectively reserve the north and south of the occupied West Bank for Palestinians and further cut off East Jerusalem.

The previously unannounced tender sets conditions for companies to bid for part of the work, and the deadline will be mid-March.

Yonatan Mizrachi, co-director of Settlement Watch with advocacy group Peace Now, who found the document online, said it “reflects an accelerated effort to advance construction on E1.”

“This timeline shows bulldozers could be up and running in less than a year,” he added. Construction work will prevent British government land grab defined as “A clear violation of international law”

Building settlements in this region is a decades-old idea with cross-party support in Israel; It was first discussed in the 1990s by Yitzhak Rabin, a Labor prime minister and Nobel peace prize winner who was assassinated by a right-wing nationalist in 1995.

Construction has been blocked for years by the United States and the country’s European allies for the same reason that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and key ministers embraced the plan.

Critics and supporters alike agree that settling tens of thousands of Israeli settlers in a triangle of occupied territory between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah would critically undermine efforts to achieve a two-state solution.

“The purpose of construction at E1 is to create irreversible realities on the ground that lead to a one-state reality that all indicators suggest will take the form of an apartheid regime,” Mizrachi said.

Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, said last year that Donald Trump had abandoned his long-standing opposition to the US E1 plan.

The State Department had no comment on Trump’s stance, but Israeli officials gave formal planning approval to the project in August, which Smotrich said would “bury” the idea of ​​a sovereign Palestine.

He said at the time: “Those who are trying to recognize a Palestinian state in the world will receive a response from us on the ground.” “Not with documents, decisions, or statements, but with facts. The facts of the homes, the neighborhoods, the roads, and the Jewish families who built their lives.”

More than 20 countries, including Israel’s allies France, Canada, Italy and Australia, condemned the decision as an unacceptable violation of international law that risks further fueling violence.

Undaunted, Israel continued its construction planning. In September, the housing ministry signed an agreement to finance infrastructure construction for E1 and the expansion of neighboring Ma’ale Adumim in a ceremony presided over by Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said, “We said there would be no Palestinian state, and in fact there will be no Palestinian state! This place is ours.”

Sitting next to him was Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by countries including the UK, Canada and Australia for “repeatedly inciting violence against Palestinian communities”, and the leader of settler organization Amana, which has also been sanctioned by the UK for supporting and supporting violence against Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s enthusiasm was reflected in the rapid progress towards the breakthrough. Hagit Ofran, a settlement expert from Peace Now, said it would typically take six months to a year for tenders to be prepared after planning approval for the deal, rather than just four months for the extensive E1 construction.

If there is a similar pace in other stages of approval and signing of contracts, builders could bring in the bulldozers before national elections in October.

“I’m afraid we will see construction in the coming months,” Ofran said. “They are now doing their best to create many things that are irreversible. [change] “As quickly as possible in the West Bank.”

Winning bids can be selected within days of auction closing. The next stage is agreeing on the details of a contract, which usually takes weeks. Once the contract is signed, the last step before construction begins is to obtain construction permits from the municipality, which can take months.

Since E1 is officially classified as an extension of this settlement towards Jerusalem rather than a new project, the infrastructure deal is with the neighboring municipality of Ma’ale Adumim.

This is just one in a series of settlement expansions in occupied Palestine by a government with an aggressive construction agenda.

In December, Israel approved a proposal to establish 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank; two of these had previously been evacuated under a 2005 plan to withdraw Israeli settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

In 2022, there were 141 settlements in the West Bank. According to Peace Now, there will be 210 settlements once the recently approved settlements are built.

The Israeli army has already been deployed to the evacuated areas to establish bases ahead of the arrival of new settlers.

There was also an increase in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers during Israel’s war in Gaza; The UN commission and Israeli and international rights groups consider this a genocide.

Since October 2023, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including at least a fifth of them children, and tens of thousands have been forcibly displaced from their homes.

There is little political opposition to attempts to expand Israeli control over the West Bank from any mainstream Israeli political party, and Israeli soldiers and settlers target Palestinians in an environment of widespread impunity.

The UN’s international court of justice (ICJ) ruled in 2024 that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory violates international law. The sweeping advisory opinion instructed Israel to end the occupation “as quickly as possible” and pay full compensation for its “acts contrary to international law.”