UN warns about ‘devastating humanitarian impact’ of Israel’s controversial E1 settlement plan in occupied West Bank

HAMILTON, Canada

The UN on Wednesday warned that Israel’s approval of more than 3,000 housing units for settlers in the so-called E1 plan would have a “devastating humanitarian impact” on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement that the project “would effectively cut off the northern and central West Bank from the south,” threatening Palestinian movement and access.

OCHA warned that the “plan would have a devastating humanitarian impact, first and foremost on Palestinians in that area, but also on the wider Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

“The plan specifically puts 18 Palestinian Bedouin communities at a higher risk of displacement,” it added.

Israel’s settlement expansion also includes the construction of a bypass road diverting Palestinian traffic away from the main Jerusalem-Jericho road.

“Such roads undermine territorial contiguity, increase travel times, and negatively affect people’s livelihoods and access to services,” OCHA stressed.

The UN further warned of a longstanding Israeli plan to encircle the E1 area with additional sections of the separation wall.

“This would further deepen restrictions on movement and access and run counter to the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of 2004 that all sections of that Wall already built within the Occupied Palestinian Territory must be dismantled,” it said.

Israeli media reported last week that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved the construction of 3,401 settler units in Ma’ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, and 3,515 more in surrounding areas. The project aims to split the West Bank into two parts, severing connections between its northern and southern cities and isolating East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry denounced the move as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision for a “Greater Israel,” warning it would entrench the occupation and eliminate the viability of a Palestinian state.

The international community, including the UN, considers Israeli settlements illegal under international law.

In an advisory opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and urged the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

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