London (Quds News Network)- The UK summoned Israel's ambassador in London on Thursday following Israel's approval of the highly controversial E1 settlement project, which “buries the idea of a Palestinian state” and would divide the occupied West Bank in two. The UK foreign secretary co-signed a joint statement on Thursday criticising the so-called E1 plan. The statement, which was signed by 21 countries including Australia, Canada and France, said: “The decision by the Israeli higher planning committee to approve plans for settlement construction in the E1 area, east of Jerusalem, is unacceptable and a violation of international law. We condemn this decision and call for its immediate reversal in the strongest terms.” In a separate statement, the Foreign Office confirmed it had summoned Tzipi Hotovely in a display of public criticism. “If implemented, these settlement plans would be a flagrant breach of international law and would divide a future Palestinian state in two, critically undermining a two-state solution,” the department said in a statement. "Minister Smotrich says this plan will make a two-state solution impossible by dividing any Palestinian state and restricting Palestinian access to Jerusalem," the 21 countries' joint statement added. "This brings no benefits to the Israeli people. Instead, it risks undermining security and fuels further violence and instability, taking us further away from peace." The joint statement urged Israel to "urgently retract this plan," saying that "unilateral action by the Israeli government undermines our collective desire for security and prosperity in the Middle East." What We Know Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced last week that he will move forward with the highly controversial E1 settlement project. Smotrich said he would approve tenders to build more than 3,000 housing units in the E1 area settlement project that would connect occupied Jerusalem and the existing illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, located several kilometres to the east. “Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan that we began implementing with the establishment of the government,” the finance minister said. “After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. This is Zionism at its best – building, settling, and strengthening our sovereignty in the Land of Israel.” In a statement before the announcement, Smotrich, who is also a minister in Israel’s Ministry of Defence with broad responsibility for approving settlements in the occupied West Bank, hailed the project as “Zionism at its best”. “After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Maale Adumim to Jerusalem,” Smotrich added. On Wednesday, Israel gave the final approval for the controversial settlement project. The E1 construction plan dates back to the late 1990s, and its implementation has repeatedly been delayed due to international opposition. Israel Gantz, chairman of the Yesha Council – an umbrella organisation of illegal settlements in the West Bank – and head of the Binyamin Regional Council, praised the “tremendous and historic achievement for the settlement movement”, according to Israel National News. Gantz said it was a “true revolution in strengthening the settlement enterprise”, the outlet said. Maale Adumim Mayor Guy Yifrach also hailed the new settlement, saying it will “connect Maale Adumim to Jerusalem and serve as a Zionist response of settlement and nation-building”. “The Palestinians aimed to establish a stranglehold through illegal construction – this project will thwart that effort,” he said, according to Israel National News. Israel postponed the plan in 2022 following United States pressure. But in recent months, Netanyahu’s far-right government has approved road-widening projects in the area and begun restricting Palestinian access. Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said a total of 4,030 new housing units had been approved in the occupied West Bank. Some 730 are west of the existing Israeli settlement of Ariel, while 3,300 had been approved in a new Maale Adumim neighbourhood that will connect it “with the industrial zone to its east”. “The 3,300 housing units in Maale Adumim represent an increase of about 33 percent in the settlement’s housing stock – an enormous expansion for a settlement whose population has been stagnant at around 38,000 for the past decade,” it said. It added that the Maale Adumim extension raised “serious questions about the need for the E1 plan”. “Since 1999 until now, whenever Israel tried to activate this project, all the American administrations would block it and stop it,” Jamal Juma, coordinator for Stop the Wall campaign, said. “Because they know this is one of the most dangerous settlement projects that would totally separate the south of the West Bank from the middle and the north.” The E1 project seeks to cut off Palestinian communities between Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, which includes a historic area known as al-Bariyah, or “the Wilderness of Jerusalem”, which Palestine submitted to Unesco’s tentative list of heritage sites. “This also means that the main historical route that has existed for more than 3,000 years existed – the road Jesus took from Jericho to Jerusalem – is going to be totally closed for the Palestinians,” said Juma. The isolation of East Jerusalem from parts of the West Bank will force Palestinians to take lengthy detours to travel between several cities and towns. The plan has been likened to fragmenting occupied Palestine into “Bantustans”, a reference to Black-only ghettos created across apartheid South Africa. “Hebron and Bethlehem will become another Gaza – a strip isolated from the West. Ramallah will be the same,” said Juma. Israel, Juma added, “started putting the framework for this when they started building the wall. It has been shaping the apartheid system, by isolating the Palestinians from each other, from their lands.” Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in roughly 300 illegal settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Settlements are illegal under international law. Smotrich and other Israeli figures have repeatedly spoken of the “sovereignty plan”, referring to the formal annexation of parts of the West Bank through changing the reality on the ground. The far-right minister said he has support from US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his controversial plan. “[Netanyahu] backs me up in everything concerning Judea and Samaria, and is letting me create the revolution,” Smotrich said, using a biblical term for the West Bank. He spoke at an event in Maale Adumim, The Times of Israel newspaper reported. Smotrich also said Trump and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, backed the plan to revive the long-frozen E1 settlement project, which the finance minister has said “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.” Smotrich thanked them for their support, calling them “men of truth with a clear and distinct moral voice that is not confused by the hypocrisy of the West”. He added that Trump and Huckabee believed “that a Palestinian state would endanger the existence of Israel” and that the West Bank is “an inseparable part of our land, the one that God promised to our father Abraham and gave to us thousands of years ago”.