Overview

• The proposal calls for roughly 3,515 new housing units in the Tzipor Midbar area of Ma’ale Adumim, nearly doubling the settlement’s size by an estimated 35,000 residents.
• A government planning subcommittee cleared the project on August 14 and military authorities are expected to grant final approval imminently, paving the way for rapid implementation.
• The plan includes a new corridor to segregate Israeli and Palestinian traffic, a configuration critics say would effectively isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
• Smotrich described the development as “Zionism at its fullest,” urging formal application of Israeli sovereignty and declaring it would bury the idea of a Palestinian state.
• With Western capitals poised to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, Palestinian officials, Arab League members, the UN and Israeli rights groups condemned the plan as illegal under international law and lethal to any two-state framework.