{"id":59078,"date":"2026-08-20T19:23:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/uk-france-germany-italy-and-canada-condemn-israels-west-bank-settlement-project\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T19:23:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:23:35","slug":"uk-france-germany-italy-and-canada-condemn-israels-west-bank-settlement-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/uk-france-germany-italy-and-canada-condemn-israels-west-bank-settlement-project\/","title":{"rendered":"UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada condemn Israel&#8217;s West Bank settlement project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, on Wednesday the Israeli housing ministry issued a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cvg30l6myj3o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">approved by the Israeli government last August<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It covers about 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the time of their unveiling, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich &#8211; an ultranationalist and settler &#8211; said the idea of a Palestinian state was &#8220;being erased&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The deadline for bids is 19 October, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/play\/w3ct8mcf\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">just days before Israel&#8217;s general election on 27 October<\/a>, making it much harder for any future government to overturn any tenders issued.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem &#8211; land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state &#8211; during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite the fierce international opposition, successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas&#8217;s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Opponents of the E1 project have warned that it would effectively block the establishment of a Palestinian state because it would cut off the north of the West Bank from the south, and prevent the development in the centre of a contiguous Palestinian urban area connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c998evlgz8ko?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, on Wednesday the Israeli housing ministry issued a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the Israeli government last August. It covers about 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) between East Jerusalem and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1026,4738,8143,972,7006,3589,1391,6078,7131,3050],"class_list":["post-59078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-bank","tag-canada","tag-condemn","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-israels","tag-italy","tag-project","tag-settlement","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59080,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59078\/revisions\/59080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}