The UN human rights office said Friday that a government plan to greenlight the construction of thousands of Israeli homes in a contentious area of the West Bank is illegal under international law, and would put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction.
The UN rights office spokesperson said the plan would break the West Bank into isolated enclaves and that it was “a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday that he intends to approve tenders to build more than 3,000 housing units in the controversial E1 settlement project between Jerusalem and the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, a plan that he claimed Thursday “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made no direct comment on the matter. Smotrich on Thursday said the premier backs the plan.
Europe, Arab countries and the UN itself denounced the finance minister’s plan on Thursday. On Friday, Germany also announced its disapproval of the plan.
Germany “firmly rejects the Israeli government’s announcements regarding the approval of thousands of new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” said a foreign ministry spokesperson in a statement.
The US State Department issued a vague statement in the wake of Smotrich’s announcement, but did not directly comment on the plan and has refrained from any criticism of it.
The potential construction of a new neighborhood for Ma’ale Adumim in the so-called E1 zone has long been cause for alarm in the international community. It would divide the West Bank into northern and southern regions and prevent the development of a Palestinian metropolis that connects East Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Ramallah, which the Palestinians have long hoped would serve as the foundation of their future state.
Smotrich, who holds a junior ministerial position within the Defense Ministry that gives him significant influence over settlement construction, said the E1 approvals were a response to a wave of Western countries that have announced or floated plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations next month.
The far-right minister’s declaration also came after, in March, the security cabinet approved the construction of the “Fabric of Life” Palestinian-only bypass road in the Jerusalem area in a bid to separate Israeli and Palestinian traffic and entrench Israel’s presence beyond the Green Line.
Hailing that move, the Prime Minister’s Office said at the time that it would reduce congestion on the road between the capital and Ma’ale Adumim and boost Israeli construction in E1.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the longstanding conflict.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem, but has refrained from taking the step in the West Bank. Far-right leaders, including Smotrich, have also pushed for Israel to reestablish settlements in the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing war against the Hamas terror group there.