Hamas condemns Smotrich’s plan to "bury Palestine"

Shafaq News – West Bank (Updated at 14:55)

On Thursday, Hamas denounced Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s plan to advance the E1 settlement project, which would add more than 3,400 housing units in Ma’ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem.

The E1 zone remains one of the most contentious settlement initiatives, repeatedly halted under US and EU pressure. Critics warn that its construction would split the West Bank into northern and southern enclaves and destroy the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise,” Smotrich said, warning that “anyone in the world who tries today to recognise a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground.

In a statement, Hamas labeled the plan a “dangerous step” in Israel’s strategy of annexation and forced displacement, accusing it of operating as a “colonial regime” in defiance of international law and UN resolutions that deem settlements illegal.

The group vowed the project would “fail against Palestinian steadfastness,” arguing that imposing new facts on the ground “will not confer legitimacy on the occupation.”

Smotrich, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and the minister overseeing West Bank civilian affairs in the Defense Ministry, announced on Wednesday that he would approve the tenders, portraying the plan as “Zionism at its best.” He declared that the E1 development would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” by linking Ma’ale Adumim directly to Jerusalem under a “de facto sovereignty strategy.”