OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel government officials said Tuesday that new plans for settler homes in one of the most contentious areas of the occupied West Bank were commissioned without authorization and have no validity.
A statement in the name of “officials” at the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a move to revive and extend plans for construction in the zone east of Jerusalem known as E1, was launched during his previous government by then-Housing Minister Uri Ariel, of the far-right Jewish Home party.
“He did so of his own initiative and without the required authorization,” the statement said. “The Housing Ministry has no authority either to plan or build beyond the Green Line,” which separates Israel from the West Bank.
“These plans, therefore, have no standing and are not binding on anyone,” it added.
Ariel, himself a resident of Kfar Adumin settlement, northeast of E1, is now agriculture minister.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said Monday that the Housing Ministry was seeking to build 55,548 units in the West Bank – including two new settlements – of which more than 8,300 homes would be in E1.
Tuesday’s statement referred specifically to Ariel’s “theoretical plans for development in E1” and did not mention the broader project.
E1 and the adjacent Maaleh Adumim settlement form an Israeli buffer east of Jerusalem that the Palestinians say would divide the West Bank and badly hurt the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state.
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