Netanyahu signs off plan to expand West Bank settlements
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the contentious E1 settlement plan, marking a significant expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Middle East Eye reported citing local media on September 12th.
“We said that there would not be a Palestinian state—and indeed, there will not be a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu declared during a ceremony in the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.
The plan, decades in the making, was formally okayed by the Israeli Civil Administration in August. It will enable the construction of more than 3,400 housing units, aimed at linking current settlements in Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank with occupied East Jerusalem.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared in August that the project would move forward, hailing it as “Zionism at its best—building, settling and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel.” Smotrich currently faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant application on charges of apartheid.
The move has sparked widespread condemnation. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the E1 plan would sever the West Bank and remove the possibility of a neighbouring Palestinian state.
Under the plan, occupied East Jerusalem would be isolated while Bethlehem and Ramallah would be cut off from one another. Analysts and rights groups have compared this fragmentation of Palestinian territories to the “Bantustans” of apartheid-era South Africa, which were ghettos for black people.
International law explicitly prohibits settlement construction by an occupying power.
The expansion push has coincided with a sweeping military campaign across West Bank cities and refugee camps, involving raids, mass detentions, and escalating settler violence. Human rights organisations have documented a sharp rise in attacks by settlers, often carried out with impunity and, in many cases, direct support from the Israeli government.
Operations intensified following a shooting attack in Jerusalem on September 8th that killed six Israelis. In response, Israeli authorities launched punitive measures against Palestinian communities, with soldiers surrounding towns, enforcing lockdowns, and arresting residents.
On September 11th, Israeli forces blockaded the West Bank city of Tulkarm, detaining more than 100 Palestinians, according to Al Jazeera and Quds News Network.
Since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, more than 19,000 Palestinians in the West Bank have been detained, according to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.
Today, roughly 700,000 Israeli settlers live in around 300 illegal settlements spread across the West Bank and East Jerusalem—territories Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East war.
Middle East Eye, Al Jazeera, Quds News Network, Human Rights Watch, Maghrebi.org
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