Israel is facing mounting criticism from several Western allies and the United Nations over a controversial West Bank settlement project, the military’s decision not to probe the killing of aid workers in Gaza, and recent incendiary remarks by a far-right minister.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires on Wednesday over the government’s decision this week to open bidding for the construction of the long-stalled E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem.

The widely condemned plan would carve up land in the West Bank that the Palestinians seek for a state.

Miliband said he told Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that “the Israeli government must halt E1 plans immediately, retract the tender and stop all settlement expansion.”

Israel on Tuesday issued a tender for seven residential compounds containing 1,234 housing units in E1, part of some 3,400 homes approved for the area last year. The project would link Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim while disrupting Palestinian territorial contiguity between Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and Ramallah.

The project had been frozen for years due to fierce international opposition, including from previous US administrations. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who championed the plan, said when it was approved last year that it “practically erases the two-state delusion.”

Germany also condemned the E1 move, saying it jeopardizes the prospect for a two-state solution.

“Our message is clear: There must be no further steps toward annexation in the West Bank,” said Sebastian Hille, spokesman for the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “No formal ones, but also no political, structural, or other measures whose impact is increasingly and obviously leading toward annexation. They run counter to a two-state solution.”

‘Difficult time’ with Australia

The diplomatic friction extended to Canberra, where Foreign Minister Penny Wong met Israeli Ambassador Hillel Newman on Thursday after summoning him over the IDF’s decision not to pursue a criminal investigation into........

© The Times of Israel