(21 Aug 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PART MUTE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ARCHIVE: Maale Adumim, West Bank – 24 June 2020
1. Aerial shot of Maale Adumim and E1 ++MUTE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A-Tur, East Jerusalem – 21 August 2025
2. E1 area
3. Establishing shot of Hagit Ofran from Peace Now NGO showing the E1 area
4. E1 area map
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Hagit Ofran, Peace Now:
"The plan of E1 that is actually behind us is going to destroy the possibility of the development of any Palestinian state and, in fact, any Palestinian economy because we are standing in the heart of the West Bank. Behind us and around us there are living almost 1 million Palestinians in the metropolis of East Jerusalem, Ramallah and Bethlehem. And if we build in the heart of this metropolis, we are actually destroying the potential of any development of this area."
6. Wide of Maale Adumim settlement
7. E1 area
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Hagit Ofran, Peace Now:
"In addition to that, we are actually cutting the West Bank into north and south, and no Palestinian continuity can be achieved if Israel is actually making an Israeli corridor into the heart of the Palestinian state."
9. Pan right of E1 area
10. Various of separation barrier
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Hagit Ofran, Peace Now:
++DEMONSTRATING ON MAP++
"All the brown here is the Palestinian continuity. Israel wants to make an Israeli continuity at the heart of the West Bank. So, this is E1. This is the settlement of Maale Adumim already built, just behind us here. And if Israel is to build it, and the plan is also to close all this area for Palestinians, Israel is building now an alternative road that will divert all Palestinian movement to a string of a road, and all this territory will be closed for Palestinians."
12. Various of road around Maale Adumim
13. E1 area
STORYLINE:
Israel gave final approval Wednesday for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two, and that Palestinians and rights groups say could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.
Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations.
The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, cast the approval as a rebuke to Western countries that announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and has vowed to maintain open-ended control over the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem, and the war-ravaged Gaza Strip — territories Israel seized in the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for their state.
Israel’s expansion of settlements is part of an increasingly dire reality for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as the world’s attention focuses on the war in Gaza.
There have been marked increases in attacks by settlers on Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian towns, Israeli military operations, and checkpoints that choke freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
More than 700,000 Israelis settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The location of E1 is significant because it is one of the last geographical links between the major West Bank cities of Ramallah, in the north, and Bethlehem, in the south.
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