Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state, asserting that the land in question belongs to Israel.
Netanyahu on Thursday formally approved the controversial E1 settlement project in the occupied West Bank — a move analysts say could make the creation of a future Palestinian state virtually impossible.
Speaking at an event in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, Netanyahu said, “We are fulfilling our promise — there will be no Palestinian state. This land is ours.” He also announced that the settlement’s population would be doubled.
The project spans 12 square kilometers and calls for the construction of 3,400 new housing units. Once completed, it would effectively split the West Bank in two, disconnecting large parts of it from occupied East Jerusalem while linking Israeli settlements into a contiguous bloc.
Palestinians have long envisioned East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. International law considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal, regardless of Israeli government approval.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut reported that the plan would destroy the geographical continuity between the West Bank and East Jerusalem, further diminishing hopes for a two-state solution.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority president, called the move a violation of international law and warned that Netanyahu was “dragging the entire region into a dark abyss.” He reiterated that a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is the key to peace and urged countries that have not yet recognized Palestine to do so immediately.
Netanyahu has long supported settlement expansion and opposed the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, including the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, which he once claimed to have effectively nullified. During his first term as prime minister in 1997, he facilitated the creation of the Har Homa settlement in East Jerusalem and has repeatedly vowed that no Palestinian state would ever be formed under his leadership.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, recently said that projects like E1 would “wipe Palestine off the map.”
