Just a week before Israel approved the E1 settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich laid out plans for the massive project.
Announcing he will approve tenders to build more than 3,000 homes for the settlement, Smotrich clarified the construction’s true intention.
“E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan that we began implementing with the establishment of the government,” Smotrich said.
For both proponents and critics of E1, the response is the same: the settlement’s construction destroys Palestinian statehood and pushes forward Israeli annexation of the West Bank.
A decades-long settlement plan
On 20 August 2025, the Higher Planning Council, part of Israel’s Civil Administration, which governs the West Bank, approved plans to build 3,401 housing units in the E1 area of the West Bank, an Israeli-designated zone east of Jerusalem.
While the recent approval of E1 came at record speed, the settlement plan has long been promoted by the Israeli government.
The Israeli state first introduced the E1 settlement in 1994, aiming to transform a 12-kilometre area of land belonging to the Palestinian villages of al-Tur, Anata, al-‘Eizariya, and Abu Dis into a commercial and industrial centre for Israelis.
In 1997, then-Israeli Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai initially approved the settlement, and in 2004, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered construction to be expedited, but the plan was subsequently frozen due to pressure from US President George W. Bush’s administration.
Plans to build E1 stalled for decades over international opposition that the settlement’s construction would kill the possibility of a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel.
The international community has long advocated for the establishment of an Israeli and a Palestinian state side-by-side, with Palestine covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
“E1 is unlike any other settlement because of its strategic location,” Daniel Seidemann, founder and director of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an Israeli NGO tracking political developments in Jerusalem, told The New Arab.
Located precisely in the middle of the West Bank, E1 is just east of Jerusalem (hence its official name as East 1) and adjacent to the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim.
“The goal of E1 is to create a massive land bridge connecting Ma’ale Adumim, which is the third largest settlement in the West Bank [to Jerusalem], and to extend sovereign Israel to the bluffs overlooking the Jordan River,” Seidemann said.
“Because of its location immediately to the east of Jerusalem, it would shield East Jerusalem from its environs in the West Bank, which would make the creation of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem virtually impossible.”
Essentially, an Israeli settlement in the E1 corridor would slice the West Bank into two, disconnecting its northern half (where the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, and Jenin are) from its southern end, where Bethlehem and Hebron are located, while also breaking East Jerusalem from the West Bank, which it is a part of.
“This would fragment any potential Palestinian state, and undermine its geographical integrity, but also its economic viability,” Seidemann said.
Beyond its implications for Palestinian statehood, E1 would have drastic consequences for Palestinian development.
“E1 prevents any Palestinian expansion in its surroundings,” Hassan Malihat, general supervisor of the Al-Baidar Organisation for the Defence of Bedouin Rights in Palestine, said.
“As it cuts off natural passages between Palestinian communities and restricts freedom of movement.”
Specifically, the settlement isolates 18 Bedouin villages in the E1 corridor - consisting of 3,700 individuals, according to Al-Baidar - from other Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank and from East Jerusalem.
Not only will they be cut off from Palestinian urban life, but they’re also at risk of displacement to build E1.
“What I'm very concerned about is that the first thing we will be seeing is not necessarily the construction [of E1], but the expulsion of Palestinians from the area,” Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at Ir Amim, an Israeli NGO monitoring Jerusalem policy, told TNA.
With E1’s approval, Al-Baider warns that Bedouin displacement is imminent, and told TNA the organisation has seen an increase in the razing of homes and agricultural facilities in these villages in recent years.
To build E1, Israeli authorities will need to move the Az-Zayim Checkpoint, which many Palestinians use to enter East Jerusalem, further east. With the checkpoint’s relocation, Israel plans to construct an alternative highway for Palestinian traffic to move outside of the E1 zone.
Israel’s Cabinet approved construction for this bypass route, which it refers to as the “Fabric of Life Road”, in March 2025. The road plans to circumvent E1, running from Ramallah north of E1 to the Palestinian village of Al-Izzariya directly below the settlement’s southern boundary.
Earlier this month, the Israeli Civil Administration distributed demolition orders to shops in Al-Izzariya to build the highway.
While Israel has yet to officially annex the West Bank (beyond passing symbolic motions), the state is already implementing facts on the ground.
“In 1983, Israel enacted military order 50 to build roads from West to East and North to South - linking Israeli settlements to Israel,” Dr Khalil Toufakji, a Palestinian cartographer, said.
Building E1 and its related road construction are all intertwined to cement Israeli control of the West Bank and erase the Palestinian population.
And according to Yonatan Mizrachi, with Israeli settlement watchdog, Peace Now, a bill doesn’t need to be passed for annexation to happen.
“Even if annexation isn’t recognised in Israel’s parliament,” Mizrachi said. “We are already in a situation of annexation, what we call de facto annexation.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News
Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum