“In a joint statement issued on Friday, Anthony Albanese and the leaders of the UK, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands and New Zealand said: “Over the past few months, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated significantly. Settler violence is at unprecedented levels.””

“According to a tender published by the Israel Land Authority in January and first reported by the Guardian, the project would contain 3,401 housing units.”

“Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is himself a settler, said when the project was approved in August last year that it would “bury” the idea of a sovereign Palestine.”

“Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir were sanctioned last June by the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom for inciting extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.”

“In March, a coalition of Australian civil society organisations called for the Albanese government to block the E1 settlement.”

“Andrew Witheford, the International and Crisis Campaigner at Amnesty International Australia, said at the time: “We welcome that the Government, along with 20 other countries, last year condemned Israel’s moves to illegally annex the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the West Bank.””