Israel's building plan for West Bank criticized

JERUSALEM/UNITED NATIONS — Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved plans overnight for a settlement that would split East Jerusalem from the northern West Bank, a move his office said would "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

It was not immediately clear if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the plan to revive the long-frozen E1 scheme, which Palestinians and world powers have said would lop the West Bank in two and will likely draw international ire.

In a statement headlined "Burying the idea of a Palestinian State", Smotrich's spokesperson said the minister would give a news conference later on Thursday about the plan to build 3,401 houses for Israeli settlers between an existing settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Israel had frozen construction plans there since 2012 because of objections from the United States, European allies and other world powers who considered the project a threat to any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

Britain and France are among several countries to announce in recent weeks plans to recognize a Palestinian state later this year, saying they wanted to keep the two-state solution alive.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said: "Our position is clear — the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law," in a note to correspondents.

Construction in the E1 area would sever the northern and southern West Bank, severely undermining the prospects for the realization of a viable, contiguous State of Palestine, the note added.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Thursday urged Israel to drop plans to advance settlement construction in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank, warning the move would violate international law and irreparably damage prospects for a two-state solution.

"If implemented, settlement construction in this area will permanently cut the geographical and territorial contiguity between occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank and sever the connection between the northern and southern West Bank," Kallas said in a statement.

Germany said it "strongly objects" to the plan and called on the Israeli government to "stop settlement construction", while Saudi Arabia also condemned the move "in the strongest possible terms".

Israeli NGO Peace Now, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, denounced the E1 plan as "deadly for the future of Israel and for any chance of achieving a peaceful two-state solution".

Meanwhile, in Gaza, more than 100 nonprofit groups warned on Thursday that Israel's rules for aid groups working in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank will block much-needed relief and replace independent organizations with those that serve Israel's political and military agenda — charges that Israel denied.

At the same time, hospital officials reported more deaths from Israeli airstrikes and an increasing toll from malnutrition.

The mounting backlash over aid restrictions and the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza have been cited by several countries as a factor in their moves toward recognizing Palestinian statehood.

The aid groups, including Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders and CARE, stressed on Thursday that most of them have not been able to deliver "a single truck" of lifesaving assistance since Israel implemented a blockade in March.

Xinhua-Agencies