Reuters / August 14, 2025
BRUSSELS – European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday that a Jewish settlement plan is not in line with international law, and she called on Israeli authorities not to move ahead with it.
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has announced that work would start on a long-delayed settlement that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem.
“The decision of Israeli authorities to advance the E1 settlement plan further undermines the two-state solution while being a breach of international law,” Kallas said in a statement. “The EU reiterates its call on Israel to halt settlement construction,” she added.
Reporting by Lili Bayer; editing by Leslie Adler
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UN rights office says Jewish settlement plan breaks international law
Reuters / August 15, 2025
The U.N. human rights office said on Friday an Israeli plan to build to build thousands of new homes between a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and near East Jerusalem was illegal under international law, and would put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction, which it described as a war crime.
Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday vowed to press on a long-delayed settlement project, saying the move would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.
The U.N. rights office spokesperson said the plan would break the West Bank into isolated enclaves and that it was “a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
About 700,000 Jewish settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, a move not recognised by most countries, but has not formally extended sovereignty over the West Bank.
Most world powers say settlement expansion erodes the viability of a two-state solution by breaking up territory the Palestinians seek as part of a future independent state.
The two-state plan envisages a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, existing side by side with Israel, which captured all three territories in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel cites historical and biblical ties to the area and says the settlements provide strategic depth and security and that the West Bank is “disputed” not “occupied”.
Reporting by Emma Farge; writing by Ahmed Elimam; editing by Mark Heinrich and Andrew Heavens
