Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday welcomed a joint statement by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway opposing Israel’s planned expansion of the E1 settlement project in the occupied West Bank.
The countries called on Israel to abandon the plan immediately and halt settlement expansion, saying Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal and undermine the two-state solution.
Abbas, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, praised the statement and its warning that the E1 project could sever the geographical contiguity of the West Bank and undermine the prospects for peace.
He urged Israel to cancel the plan, saying its implementation would separate the northern and southern parts of the West Bank and isolate east Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings.
Abbas described the project as a “flagrant violation” of international law and United Nations resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 2334. He said it formed part of Israel’s policies of settlement expansion, annexation and imposing facts on the ground, threatening the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital.
The Palestinian president called on the countries that signed the statement, the European Union, members of the UN Security Council and the international community to turn their positions into concrete measures to stop the E1 project, settlement activity and settler violence.
He also urged countries not to recognise or engage with any Israeli measures or changes imposed in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying a firm international response was needed to uphold international law and protect Palestinian rights.
Abbas stressed that east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip constitute a single geographical and political unit and are the territory of the occupied State of Palestine. Settlement and annexation, he said, could neither create legal rights nor alter the status of the occupied territory.
He reiterated the Palestinians’ commitment to a just and comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution and international law, and called for steps to establish an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
