Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his approval of 3,500 new illegal settler homes in the highly contested ‘E1’ area.

On the eve of Israel’s third elections in a year, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu promises to build thousands of settler homes in an area which is widely regarded as a “red line”. He wasn’t the first to make this promise.

Israel opened a new road in the central occupied West Bank on Thursday with an eight-meter wall separating Palestinian and Israeli traffic, leading many to deem the route “Apartheid Road.”