Over 400 ex-European officials urge EU leaders to halt West Bank annexation

More than 400 former European ministers, ambassadors and officials have urged the European Union (EU) to stop Israel's illegal land expropriation in the occupied West Bank and halt the regime's controversial E1 settlement plan.

"The EU and its member states, together with partners, must take immediate action to deter Israel from further advancing its illegal annexation of Palestinian land in the West Bank," an open letter signed by more than 440 figures, including former EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell and former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, read on Wednesday.

The signatories called for targeted sanctions, such as visa bans and business restrictions on "all those engaged in illegal settlement activity," calling for measures against those promoting or implementing the E1 scheme.

The E1 project near al-Quds covers around 12 square kilometers, with some 3,400 illegal settler units in the West Bank.

The letter said the regime plans to publish an initial tender on June 1 for the construction of up to 15,000 "illegal settlers," urging the EU and its member states to "act now."

The plan has been censured by international leaders, with the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres's spokesman, saying it would pose “an existential threat to an independent Palestinian state with al-Quds as its capital.”

According to the United Nations, the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory has reached its highest level since at least 2017.

Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are unequivocally illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population into occupied lands, a principle Israel continues to defy with impunity.

The UN has repeatedly said settlement expansion by the Israeli regime is a major obstacle to peace, as it fragments Palestinian land and leaves little contiguous territory for a viable, independent Palestinian state under a so-called two-state solution.

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