JERUSALEM, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Israel has added a tender for 2,167 housing units to its E1 settlement expansion plan, Israeli rights groups said of a project that critics say endangers a future Palestinian state.
The project would bisect the Israeli-occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, fragmenting the land Palestinians hope will form the heart of a state.
The tender for 2,167 units is in addition to a tender for 1,234 units announced at the end of August, bringing the total number of housing units to 3,401, Israeli rights group Ir Amim said in a statement issued late on Wednesday.
The decision was condemned by a representative for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday who said the E1 tenders were in violation of international law.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultra-nationalist in the governing right-wing coalition, has said the plan would “bury” a Palestinian state.
The tender is scheduled to open for bidding on October 25, two days before Israel is due to hold a parliamentary election.
Ir Amim said the bidding date showed the government’s resolve to push ahead with the E1 project and “create an increasingly irreversible reality on the ground ahead of the elections.”
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many Western states and campaign groups have opposed the E1 settlement project over concerns that it could undermine a future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Britain, France and Canada banned exports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank last week. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has said the E1 project risks making a Palestinian state unviable.
Under Israel’s right-wing coalition government there has been a massive expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
U.N. bodies, Palestinians and most countries view the settlements as illegal under international conventions — a stance disputed by Israel — and as a major obstacle to peace.
(Reporting by Pesha Magid, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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