Middle East Monitor / November 10, 2022
The municipal council of the illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim has submitted a petition to the Jerusalem District Court to implement a building scheme in the E1 area linking occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel Hayom newspaper reported.
The paper said the petition comes in the context of putting pressure on Israeli political parties currently conducting consultations to form a new right-wing government with a clear agenda to promote settlement construction in the West Bank.
It added that the scheme for construction was approved in 1998 and two detailed plans were prepared, but they were not published until February 2020.
The planned neighbourhood will include 3,500 new housing units built on an area of over 12 square kilometres.
According to the paper, construction has been delayed for several years since the area is considered a buffer zone between the north and south of the West Bank, and the Palestinians see construction in the area as ultimately thwarting the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.
In September, the Hebrew-language Walla website reported that the Israeli government had postponed deliberations on a “very sensitive” settlement building plan in the E1 area at the request of the US administration.
The sources explained that the Americans and Europeans fear that construction in the E1 area is “extremely sensitive”, as it will link the Ma’ale Adumim settlement with Jerusalem, and create an Israeli inhabited area, cutting off the West Bank, and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state with geographical contiguity.
