Israeli ministers have lauded the start of construction on a bypass road in the occupied West Bank, which they see as a step towards annexing the territory.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Transport Minister Miri Regev oversaw the start of work on Highway 45 at an event on Tuesday. The project will cost about $130 million, according to Israeli outlet Channel 14.
Speaking at the event, Mr Smotrich, a high-profile settler, said the road’s direct connection between central Israel and settlements south of the Palestinian capital Ramallah “changes the reality on the ground”.
“The massive development we are leading is in fact a targeted thwarting of the idea of a Palestinian state,” he added.
The minister’s comments follow a swathe of changes by Israel’s government seen as bringing closer the annexation of the West Bank, or “applying sovereignty” in Israeli jargon. Any such move would meet fierce international opposition.
A central concern is that such action would end the prospect of the two-state solution, the preferred route for many countries to end the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The head of the Binyamin Council, the settlement body for the area where the road passes, said Highway 45 “is a crushing answer to anyone who tries to establish a terrorist state here”.
Watchdog Peace Now explained the strategic importance of road construction to Israeli settlers. It said “most settlers commute to work within Israel every day, and the faster and more comfortable the roads are, the more attractive the settlements become”.
It added: “Highway 45 … is a central axis within a network of roads on which the government has been working intensively in recent years.”
Progress on the road is the latest development suggesting annexation is fast approaching, while there is also major Israeli settler and military violence in the West Bank.
Earlier in February, Peace Now accused Israel of moving to expand the borders of Jerusalem for the first time since 1967, which it said would amount to “annexation through the back door”.
The move would be a significant escalation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, because East Jerusalem is supposed to form the capital of a Palestinian state under the Oslo Accords.
A day earlier, the government approved a plan to allow land registration in the West Bank, which gives Israeli authorities the power to irreversibly determine ownership of land in the Palestinian territory.
At the beginning of the month, Israel's government unveiled measures to make it easier for Israelis to buy Palestinian land in the West Bank and for the state, rather than Palestinian authorities, to exercise more control over sensitive religious sites.
