The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, expressed this Wednesday that he is "deeply alarmed" by the recent Israeli settlement projects in the West Bank, focusing "particularly" on a tender to build east of Jerusalem that "would de facto interrupt the connection between the north and the south" of the Palestinian territory.
"The Secretary-General is deeply alarmed by reports of new illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including new tenders, among them the one for the E1 area" --located east of Jerusalem--, stated Guterres' spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, at a press conference.
In this regard, he emphasized that "he is particularly concerned about the situation of the settlement (in the area) E1, which would de facto interrupt the connection between the north and the south of the West Bank."
"This would have serious consequences for the territorial integrity of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and would represent an existential threat to the two-State solution," Dujarric warned, describing the potential impact of this expansion on the Palestinian political and geographical map.
Subsequently, the spokesperson noted that "the Secretary-General urges Israel to refrain from taking new measures in this regard and to act in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions and with the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of July 19, 2024."
This Advisory Opinion concludes that Israel's settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territories violates the Fourth Geneva Convention on the forced displacement of populations and that, especially regarding the use of natural resources in those areas and the application of Israeli national laws over them, it constitutes an attempt at annexation contrary to International Law.
Guterres reacted in this way to the publication by the Israeli government of a tender to build seven residential complexes with 1,234 housing units in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem. The competition sets a deadline of October 19 for construction companies to submit their proposals, a date that falls just over a week before the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 27.
The initiative is framed within the authorization of 3,400 housing units in the E1 area approved in August of last year, as part of an expansion plan defended by the Israeli Finance Minister, the ultra Bezalel Smotrich, who then emphasized that "it practically eliminates the illusion of the two States" by fracturing the territory intended for a future Palestinian state.