Settlement development in E1, east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for over two decades and was previously frozen due to U.S. pressure. The international community views West Bank settlement construction as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich presented the approval as a rebuke to Western recognition plans and framed settlements as actions that erase the prospect of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects a Palestinian state and vows continued control over occupied territories. Settlement expansion has coincided with increased settler attacks, evictions, Israeli military operations, checkpoints, and constrained Palestinian movement. More than 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. E1 is strategically significant as one of the last geographic links between Ramallah and Bethlehem, forcing Palestinians to take long detours through multiple checkpoints.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, cast the approval as a rebuke to Western countries that announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks. "The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions," he said on Wednesday. "Every settlement, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and has vowed to maintain open-ended control over the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem, and the war-ravaged Gaza Strip - territories Israel seized in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for their state. Israel's expansion of settlements is part of an increasingly dire reality for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as the world's attention focuses on the war in Gaza. There have been marked increases in attacks by settlers on Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian towns, Israeli military operations, and checkpoints that choke freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations. The location of E1 is significant because it is one of the last geographical links between the major West Bank cities of Ramallah, in the north, and Bethlehem, in the south. The two cities are 22 kilometers (14 miles) apart, but Palestinians traveling between them must take a wide detour and pass through multiple Israeli checkpoints, spending hours on the journey.
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