Israel prepares to build E1 settlement to 'bury' Palestinian state

Israel is preparing to start construction on a new illegal settlement project near Jerusalem aimed at blocking a future Palestinian state.

The government last month posted a tender for more than 3,400 housing units in the proposed E1 project, which would cut the occupied West Bank in two and prevent the formation of a state on contiguous territory.

Israeli rights monitor Peace Now first reported the tender, which invites developers to submit bids by mid-March. Yoni Mizrahi, who runs the organisation's settlement watch division, said work could begin by February.

Peace Now said the tender indicates the government is accelerating the E1 project.

"Construction in E1 is intended to create irreversible facts on the ground leading to a one-state reality, which all indications suggest would take the form of an apartheid regime," Mizrahi said.

The development, located between East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, has been proposed for more than two decades but was frozen due to international opposition.

In August, Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced that the government would go ahead with the project, which he said would "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

Smotrich, who also controls settlement policy in the West Bank, proclaimed that Palestine was "being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions".

"Every settlement, every neighbourhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea," he said.

More than 20 countries – among them Israel's allies in the UK, Australia, France, Canada and Italy – condemned the decision as a violation of international law.

The government has ignored international outcry and, in September, signed a financing agreement for E1 and an expansion of Ma'ale Adumim.

"We said there will be no Palestinian state, and indeed there will be no Palestinian state! This place is ours," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the signing ceremony.

Settlement expansion under the far-right Netanyahu government has accelerated to record levels.

Israel issued tenders for more than 9,600 housing units in settlements in 2025 alone - more than the previous six years combined, according to Peace Now.