Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that “there will be no Palestinian state” as his government approved a controversial settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.
At a signing ceremony in the settlement of Maale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, Netanyahu confirmed the move to advance the “E1” project, which covers 12 square kilometres of land. The plan will add 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers, effectively bisecting the West Bank and cutting it off from East Jerusalem.
“This place belongs to us. We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said, vowing to double the settlement’s population.
The E1 expansion links Maale Adumim with other Israeli settlements, while severing Palestinian communities from East Jerusalem, a city Palestinians view as the capital of a future state.
All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, seized during the 1967 war, are considered illegal under international law, regardless of Israeli planning approval.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the project “destroys any territorial continuity from the West Bank to East Jerusalem,” leaving little possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
Palestinian Response
Palestinian Authority spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the plan as a violation of international law and accused Netanyahu of “pushing the entire region towards the abyss.” He said a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital remains the only path to peace and insisted that the two-state solution is “inevitable.”
Rudeineh urged countries that have not yet recognised Palestine to do so, noting that 149 UN member states already extend recognition.
Background
Netanyahu has long opposed Palestinian statehood. He publicly campaigned against the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, which aimed to create a two-state framework, and was recorded in 2001 boasting that he had “put an end” to the agreements.
During his first term as prime minister in 1997, Netanyahu oversaw the creation of the Har Homa settlement in East Jerusalem. In later interviews he said a Palestinian state would never be formed while he was in power.
More recently, Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed the E1 expansion, saying it “erases Palestine from the map.” He argued that settlement growth “buries the idea of a Palestinian state” despite mounting international recognition of Palestinian statehood.