British foreign minister David Lammy said on Wednesday that a widely condemned Israeli settlement plan would, if implemented, constitute a breach of international law and risk dividing a future Palestinian state.
The E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, received the final go-ahead from a defense ministry planning commission on Wednesday.
"If implemented, it would divide a Palestinian state in two, mark a flagrant breach of international law and critically undermine the two-state solution," Lammy said in a post on X, calling on the Israeli government to reverse the decision.
The project would effectively cut the West Bank in two, and that Palestinians and rights groups say could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.
Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to US pressure during previous administrations. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, cast the approval as a rebuke to Western countries that announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks.
In July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain was prepared to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly unless Israel takes a number of steps to improve life for Palestinians.
Starmer said Britain would make the move unless Israel took substantive steps to allow more aid to enter Gaza, made clear there will be no annexation of the West Bank and commits to a long-term peace process that delivers a two-state solution - a Palestinian state coexisting in peace alongside Israel.
