(Reuters) -Foreign ministers from European countries, Australia and Britain on Friday jointly condemned Israel’s plans to construct a settlement east of Jerusalem.
The approval of the “E1” project would bisect the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, fragmenting territory Palestinians seek for an independent state.
It was announced last week by far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and received the final go-ahead from a Defence Ministry planning commission on Wednesday.
“The decision by the Israeli Higher Planning Committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law,” the foreign ministers said in a joint statement.
“We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms,” said ministers from Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
EU foreign chief Kaja Kallas, who is the vice-president of the European Commission, joined the statement.
Israel immediately dismissed the statement, saying it “rejects the attempt to impose foreign dictates upon it”.
“The historic right of Jews to live anywhere in the Land of Israel – the birthplace of the Jewish people – is indisputable,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that Israel was acting in accordance with international law.
“The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. At no point in history has there ever been a Palestinian state, and any attempt to argue otherwise has no legal, factual, or historical basis,” the statement said.
The E1 settlement plan has been widely condemned abroad.
Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war and has expanded settlements in the West Bank as it continues its war with Hamas in Gaza. About 700,000 Israeli settlers now live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“This plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem,” the ministers’ statement said, urging the Israeli government to retract the plan.
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic, additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Mark Heinrich)
