An Israeli minister announces plan that will effectively split West Bank into two

TEL AVIV: Israeli far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced work would start on a long-delayed settlement that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, a move his office said would "bury" the idea of a Palestinian state.

The Palestinian govt, allies and campaign groups condemned the scheme.

The construction on a tract of land east of Jerusalem named E1 has been has been under consideration for more than two decades, and is especially controversial because it is one of the last geographic links between the major West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem. The two cities are 22 kilometres apart by air. But once an Israeli settlement is completed, it would require Palestinians travelling between cities to drive several kilometres out of their way and pass through multiple checkpoints.

Standing at the site of the planned settlement in Maale Adumim on Thursday, Smotrich, a settler himself, said PM Netanyahu and US President Trump had agreed to the revival of the E1 development, though there was no immediate confirmation from either.

"This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise," Smotrich said on Thursday. "Whoever in the world is trying to recognise a Palestinian state today will receive our answer on the ground. Not with documents nor with decisions or statements, but with facts. Facts of houses, facts of neighbourhoods," he said.

Israel froze construction plans at Maale Adumim in 2012, and again after a revival in 2020, because of objections from the US, European allies and other powers who considered the project a threat to any peace deal with the Palestinians.

Palestinians fear the settlement building in the West Bank will rob them of any chance to build a state of their own in the area.

Smotrich's spokesperson said the minister had approved the plan to build 3,401 houses for Israeli settlers between an existing settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the Palestinian president's spokesperson, called on the US to pressure Israel to stop settlement building.