It was during a ceremony at a settlement in the occupied West Bank last September that Israel’s prime minister made his intentions clear. “We are going to fulfill our promise that there will be no Palestinian state,” said Benjamin Netanyahu. “This place belongs to us.”

He was signing an settlement to push forward with the enlargement of a settlement in an space recognized as E1, just to the east of Jerusalem.

In latest days, the opening up of tenders for the development of some 1,200 settlement properties on the strategically necessary land has introduced widespread condemnation.

All settlements are unlawful under worldwide regulation and, under international strain, Israel held off for many years on plans to construct in the space.

After the latest announcement, the UN secretary normal said they posed an “existential threat” to a future Palestinian state, while a joint assertion by the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada said the plans were “unacceptable” and would “drive a wedge through the West Bank”, a sentiment echoed by the European Union.

That was welcomed by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, who called for the signatories to take “concrete measures to halt the implementation of the E1 plan”.

Along with Gaza and the Golan Heights, the West Bank was captured during the 1967 warfare against a coalition of Arab states. Israel has managed it ever since.

As occupied land, worldwide regulation prohibits Israel from settling it. Despite that, the quantity of Israelis residing there has grown over the years. Israel has constructed about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since 1967.