A weekly report issued by the National Bureau for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance stated that the Israeli government has given the 'green light' to a new project that opens the way for settlement in the E1 area in the West Bank.

The report, a copy of which obtained by Safa, pointed out that the Israeli government agreed last week to allocate 14 million shekels to complete plans that would allow work to begin on the road called "Sovereignty Road", within the framework of the construction plan in the settlement project known as "E1" east of Jerusalem.

It stated that the approval came during a meeting held between the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Transportation Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister Yisrael Katz, and the mayor of "Ma'ale Adumim" settlement.

This comes in light of the heading for a fourth Knesset election; Netanyahu's campaign is using the election period to promote a plan that would undermine the possibility of a two-state solution, as the planned path means dismembering the West Bank, opening the road to construction in the E1 area and closing the opportunity to the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state, according to the report.

In the same context, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B'Tselem) recently labeled Israel as an apartheid state.

“The distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians,” B’Tselem said.

“A regime that uses laws, practices, and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another is an apartheid regime,” it added.