Israel’s occupation is intensifying across Palestine with the assault on Gaza City underway and the recently approved E1 settlement expansion plan in the West Bank.
Israel’s Higher Planning Committee approved the E1 settlement plan on Wednesday.
The E1 project is a highly controversial Israeli settlement plan that would link the Maale Adumim bloc in the occupied West Bank with East Jerusalem.
Once completed, it would slice the West Bank in two, severing Palestinian communities and cutting them off from their capital.
The Netanyahu government’s decision to push ahead with E1 is being widely condemned as a direct assault on any prospect of peace.
Analysts describe it as a sniper’s bullet aimed at the heart of Palestinian coexistence, coming amid a growing wave of international recognition of the State of Palestine.
In the eyes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, advancing E1 is a calculated move to deliver a death blow to Palestinian statehood.
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E1 remains one of the few areas on Jerusalem’s eastern periphery not yet covered by Jewish settlements.
The area hosts a towering Israeli police headquarters and several small Bedouin communities.
Its development would drive a wedge through the occupied West Bank, separating north from south, while closing off the last relatively open route for Palestinians to reach East Jerusalem’s holy sites, hospitals, transport systems, and tourism hubs.
International law, which recognises the 1967 Green Line as the boundary for Palestinian territory, continues to be ignored.
The project represents the latest phase of Greater Jerusalem’s long-term plan: a wedge to Judaise the land from Tel Aviv to Jordan.
Settlers in the Old City have steadily increased their presence, while demolitions and land grabs in Palestinian neighbourhoods have accelerated.
The right-wing settler movement’s longstanding strategy of taking territory “house by house” is now underway at an unprecedented pace.
Despite an International Court of Justice ruling in July 2024 ordering Israel to cease its occupation, the U.S. administration remains publicly silent and privately complicit.
Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, defended the E1 development as lawful, openly contradicting international law. The ICJ had stated:
“The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful.”
The international community now faces mounting pressure to enforce compliance and halt further erosion of Palestinian rights.
Gaza City reoccupation
While the world watches, Israel’s initial stages of invading Gaza City started today. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz threatened that Gaza City will suffer the same fate as the northern town of Beit Hanoun, where bombardments had previously levelled the area.
“Gaza City will look like Beit Hanoun,” Katz told Channel 12, during a meeting with rabbis from the far-right Religious Zionism Party. Earlier, he displayed aerial images of Beit Hanoun’s destruction, boasting: “After Rafah in the south, Beit Hanoun.”
Beit Hanoun was declared a “disaster zone” in June 2024 following a devastating Israeli assault, while Rafah had already been entirely destroyed.
Leaders of the Religious Zionism Party, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have long advocated for the destruction of Gaza, the displacement of its residents, and the establishment of illegal settlements.
Tens of thousands of Israeli reservists are being called up as the army moves to occupy Gaza City, home to over one million Palestinians, including many already displaced by nearly two years of bombardment.
The IDF has begun preliminary operations on the outskirts of the city, claiming Hamas is now a “battered and bruised” force.
Hamas condemned the operation, warning that the assault represents a “blatant disregard for the efforts made by the mediators” and endangers nearly a million residents.
The offensive is part of a broader Israeli campaign codenamed “Operation Gideon Chariots”, which aims to consolidate control over Gaza while continuing settlement expansion in the West Bank.
With E1 and Gaza City in the crosshairs, Palestinians face a dual threat – the systematic erosion of their territorial rights, and the looming devastation of densely populated urban centres.
