Overview

• Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called to accelerate construction of roughly 3,400 housing units east of Jerusalem and urged applying Israeli sovereignty over the E1 zone
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned that building in E1 would sever the West Bank and eliminate prospects for a two-state solution
• Peace Now and other Israeli NGOs report that a defense ministry technical committee will discuss final approval next week and estimate implementation could follow within months with construction starting in about a year
• Germany, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority issued formal condemnations and calls for international intervention and sanctions to halt the project
• Smotrich portrayed the initiative as retaliation against Western plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, reflecting diminished U.S. pressure under the current administration