Why Israeli tenders for illegal E1 West Bank settlement prompted outrage

Israel has opened tenders for the construction of 1,234 Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank, advancing a major illegal settlement expansion which rights groups say will, in effect, sever Palestinian territory in two.

The move is part of Israel’s plan to create the so-called “E1” area on a stretch of Palestinian land, ultimately creating a continuous Israeli settlement “corridor” between occupied East Jerusalem and the large settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, 7km (4.5 miles) east of Jerusalem. This would further disrupt Palestinian movement between the northern and southern West Bank, and isolate communities on each side. It is illegal under international law.

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Ubai al-Aboudi, a Palestinian human rights advocate, told Al Jazeera the project would put a “final nail in the coffin of the two-state solution” and “make the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible”.

The United Nations Human Rights Office has previously described the E1 project as a “grave and unlawful step to consolidate annexation”, while the UN secretary-general has said settlement construction there violates international law and runs directly counter to UN resolutions.

The move has prompted condemnation from several Western governments, which have urged Israel to withdraw the tenders and warned companies against bidding, while Israeli NGO Ir Amim said they were published despite an ongoing legal challenge that could determine the project’s future. Here is what we know.

How have plans for E1 developed?

Plans for E1, short for “East 1” – the Israeli administrative name for the area – originated under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1991 and were advanced under Yitzhak Rabin in 1994, but residential construction has repeatedly been halted amid international pressure.

Israel began preliminary infrastructure work for E1 in 2004 and later built roads and a police headquarters there, but plans for thousands of homes remained on hold as successive US and European governments warned that construction would threaten the territorial integrity of a future Palestinian state. Israel again postponed advancing E1 in 2022 following US pressure.

US President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, which began in January 2025, has, however, provided Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government with a more favourable political environment for settlement expansion, according to analysts.

E1 has therefore been revived as part of a wider expansion of Israeli control over the occupied West Bank that has accelerated under Netanyahu’s government, which relies heavily on far-right parties that favour settlement expansion.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as an additional minister within the Defence Ministry, oversees the Settlement Administration, which has extensive powers over land, planning and settlement development in the occupied West Bank.

Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement on Palestinian land himself, has explicitly linked construction of E1 to the prevention of Palestinian statehood. When plans were advanced in 2025, he said their approval “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”, while repeatedly describing his wider West Bank policies as a push towards Israeli sovereignty over the territory, which the Israeli government officially refers to as “Judea and Samaria”.

In March 2025, Israel allocated 335 million shekels ($92m) for construction of a so-called “Sovereignty Road”, designed to divert Palestinian traffic away from the E1 and Ma’ale Adumim area to a segregated route.

In May 2026, Israeli authorities demolished about 50 Palestinian shops and businesses at the eastern entrance to al-Eizariya, also known as Bethany, a Palestinian town located on the southeast slope of the Mount of Olives, about 2.4km (1.5 miles) east of Jerusalem, ahead of construction of the settlement-linked road. Bethany is the site of the Tomb of Lazarus, a holy site for Christian pilgrims and local visitors.

The E1 project is seen as part of a wider push for Israeli settlement of the West Bank as a whole. In February 2026, Israel’s security cabinet approved measures expanding Israeli authority in the occupied West Bank, including allowing greater Israeli enforcement in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority.

Bids for the latest E1 tender close on October 19, eight days before Israeli elections scheduled for October 27.

How will E1 affect Palestinian communities?

E1 lies immediately east of occupied East Jerusalem and the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

Israel plans to expand Ma’ale Adumim into E1 with 3,400 settlement homes on about 12 square kilometres (4.6 square miles) of Palestinian land there. The wider development also envisages hotels and roads linking the settlement more quickly to Jerusalem.

The latest tender, opened by Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing, covers 1,234 homes under one of two construction plans approved for E1.

E1’s location has made it particularly contentious. Ma’ale Adumim and the surrounding settlement bloc extend deep into the occupied West Bank towards the Jordan Valley, with the development threatening Palestinian communities already living on the land there.

About 3,700 Palestinians, predominantly Bedouin, live across 18 communities in the area and have already suffered home demolitions, displacement and restrictions to basic services.

Among them is Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village located directly in the path of the E1 corridor that has faced a longstanding threat of demolition and forcible displacement.

The tender has also been opened while a legal challenge remains before the Jerusalem District Court, according to Israeli NGO Ir Amim.

It said a petition brought on behalf of Palestinian residents, along with Ir Amim, Peace Now and Bimkom remains pending, with the court ordering the Israeli state in June to submit a detailed response by September 1.

Ir Amim said the government had committed to notifying petitioners before tenders were opened but had failed to do so, saying the decision to proceed while the case remains before the court raises “grave concerns about respect for the ongoing judicial process and highlights the state’s resolve to expedite the process ahead of Israel’s upcoming elections”.

How has the international community responded?

The latest move has prompted joint condemnation from the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway.

“The Israeli Government’s decision to publish construction tenders for the E1 settlement project is unacceptable,” they said.

The governments warned that E1 would “undermine the prospect of the two-state solution by driving a wedge through the West Bank and harming the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories”.

They called on Israel to withdraw the plans immediately and took the unusual step of directly warning companies against participating, warning of potential “legal and reputational consequences including the risk of involving themselves in serious breaches of international law”.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband also announced the UK had summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires and demanded that the tenders be reversed.

Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded by attacking the British government. “Someone should update Ed that the British Mandate for the Land of Israel ended in 1948 and that Israel is an independent state,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X.

Is international condemnation enough?

Despite repeated statements opposing settlement expansion, Palestinian advocates and rights groups say Israel has faced few meaningful consequences for continuing to change realities on the ground in the West Bank.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians has called on the British government to impose an immediate trade embargo on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. A coalition of five groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, has similarly called for the UK to ban settlement trade and impose further sanctions on Israel.

Palestinian rights advocate Ubai Al-Aboudi said international condemnation has failed to deter settlement expansion. “What we have seen thus far is lip service with little action towards Israel,” he told Al Jazeera. “Israel can live with all the verbal condemnation in the world as long as it’s advancing realities on the ground.”

Pointing to the International Court of Justice’s 2024 finding that there is evidence that Israel may be committing genocide in Gaza, as well as the Geneva Conventions’ prohibition on an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory, he pointed out that other countries have obligations not to facilitate or recognise such changes.

“The impunity that Israel enjoys has led to this moment,” he said, “where even the facade of a two-state solution cannot be maintained.”

Co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, Ines Abdel Razek, told Al Jazeera that international warnings about the threat to a two-state solution obscured a much deeper failure to act.

“The ‘prospect of a two-state solution’ is little more than diplomatic rhetoric used to cover deliberate inaction and complicity in the decades-long dispossession of Palestinians.

“The Israeli colonial regime has wiped out Gaza, destroyed its schools, universities, hospitals and agricultural land, and rendered two million people displaced and homeless, while continuing its decades-long annexation of the West Bank virtually without interruption. How has that not already killed the two-state solution?” she said.

“The international community has perfected its performance of outrage-crying wolf instead of sanctioning and cutting ties with Israel, thereby further emboldening Israel and entrenching its impunity. We have no illusion that today will be any different.”

Reporting originally appeared via Al Jazeera. Read the full source for additional context.