LONDON, August 21, 2025 (WAFA) – The UK summoned on Thursday Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely over Israel’s approval of the E1 colonial settlement construction plan in the occupied West Bank, according to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

The FCDO said in a press statement that “Tzipi Hotovely was summoned in response to the Israeli Higher Planning Committee’s decision to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, East of Jerusalem.”

It noted that “the UK and 21 international partners have written to condemn this decision in the strongest terms.”

“If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution,” it warned.

The Israeli occupation authorities have approved the construction of the E1 colonial settlement project in the occupied West Bank, in a move that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described as “erasing” a Palestinian state “not with slogans but with actions”.

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table, not with slogans but with actions. Every settlement, every neighbourhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea,” Smotrich said.

The new project involves the building of 3,400 new colonial units on occupied Palestinian territory. The majority of them will be built near the existing Maale Adumim colony, in an area that aims to connect colonies in the occupied West Bank with occupied East Jerusalem.

The plan also includes 342 units in a new settlement in Asael, in the south of the West Bank.

K.F.