On Thursday, 7 March, the European Union condemned the Israeli High [Planning] Committee’s approving, the previous day, plans to build more than 3,426 housing units in the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim, Efrat, and Kedar—“further expanding illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank”—and urged Israel to reverse these decisions.
“[S]ettlements are illegal under international law and constitute an obstacle to peace, as they threaten the two-state solution”, stressed the spokesperson for the European External Action Service in a press release. He also felt that expansion of the settlements was “completely inconsistent with ongoing efforts to reduce tensions, which is even more important ahead of the upcoming religious festivities of Ramadan, Pessah and Easter”.
Speaking from Jerusalem on Wednesday, 6 March, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Janez Lenarčič stressed the need to de-escalate the situation in the West Bank, “where we have seen a spike in demolitions, in settler violence, in incursions of security forces, [and] in the number of casualties”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)