Ramallah, August 10 (RHC)-- A Palestinian media report has warned of an Israeli regime’s plan to build hundreds of new illegal settler units in the strategically sensitive E1 region of the occupied West Bank in East Jerusalem.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements in a recent report condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s plans to construct more than 1,000 new settler units in the region, the Palestinian Information Center reported.

The report said the project would completely close off several Palestinian neighborhoods with settler units and block the possibility of any future urban expansion.

It added that the Israeli project would connect all the illegal settlements in the eastern area and outside the Israeli municipal borders in East Jerusalem al-Quds with the settlements within the municipal boundaries of Moshe Leon and turn the Palestinian villages and districts in this area into besieged ghettos.

The plan is aimed at expanding the Israeli regime's Judaization schemes in Jerusalem al-Quds and its plan to annex large areas of the occupied Palestinian territories, report noted. 

In recent months, Palestinian officials have condemned Israel’s exploitation of the coronavirus pandemic to expand its illegal settlement construction activities, saying the Tel Aviv regime aims to further Judaize the occupied holy city of Jerusalem al-Quds.

Critics say construction in the E1 area would effectively complete a crescent of Israeli settlements around East Jerusalem al-Quds dividing it from the rest of the West Bank and its Palestinian population centers.  It would nearly bisect the West Bank jeopardizing the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state. Palestinians describe the E1 plan as an effort to Judaize Jerusalem al-Quds.

The Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and undermine chances for a so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The occupying regime seized East Jerusalem al-Quds in the 1967 Six-Day War, and later annexed the territory in a move never recognized by the international community.  Around 600,000 Israeli settlers now live in over 230 settlements built in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Tensions have been on the rise in recent weeks in the occupied territories as Israel has pressed ahead with its plans to annex large parts of the West Bank in line with US President Donald Trump's so-called Middle East peace plan, which strongly favors Israel and has been rejected by the Palestinians.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.