The PLO’s Department of Negotiations Affairs condemned in a statement this colonial project “aimed at fragmenting the Palestinian territories and separating East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, which represents a serious threat to the two-state solution.”

The approval of this plan would formalize the annexation of a strategic area and undermine the prospects for a viable Palestinian state, it stressed.

The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is taking advantage of international concern caused by Israel’s war of extermination in the Gaza Strip to speed up settlement construction in the West Bank, it denounced.

The department emphasized that the Ma’ale Adumim bloc includes the satellite settlements of Kfar Adumim, Almon, Kedar, and Mishor Adumim, totaling more than 47,500 settlers.

Recently, it explained, the controversial E-1 project was reactivated, which plans to build more than 3,400 housing units, as well as large-scale industrial and commercial projects on approximately 12.4 square kilometers of Palestinian land confiscated from surrounding villages.

A few days ago, the president of the Palestinian National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, also condemned the Israeli initiative, which is divided into three phases.

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