Israel on Wednesday approved the construction of 3,401 housing units in E1, a highly contentious area of the occupied West Bank that critics say will effectively divide Palestinian territory and undermine prospects for a two-state solution.
The decision by the Higher Planning Council has triggered strong condemnation from the Palestinian Authority and international community.
The approval represents the culmination of decades-old plans that had been repeatedly shelved under international pressure. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the decision, declaring it would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state” and form part of the government’s broader “sovereignty plan.”
E1 is located east of Jerusalem, linking the large-scale settlement of Maale Adumim with East Jerusalem. Israeli settlement construction there is believed to effectively divide the West Bank into northern and southern parts, cutting off Palestinian territorial continuity between East Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Ramallah, while creating a continuous Jewish population corridor between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.
Currently, the E1 area hosts several Bedouin communities, including the Jahalin tribe, who have lived there since the 1950s after being displaced from the Negev desert in 1948, and some since the 1990s due to prior settlement expansions.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority swiftly condemned the move. “This undermines the chances of implementing the two-state solution, establishing a Palestinian state on the ground, and fragmenting its geographic and demographic unity,” the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Plans to expand settlements in E1 date back to the 1990s and have been reportedly endorsed by almost every Israeli prime minister since. However, strong international pressure repeatedly forced Israel to shelve or delay the project until now.
Analysts say the approval serves multiple strategic purposes for Israel’s far-right-dominated government. On the domestic front, the government seeks to consolidate its political base by taking a hard line on settlement expansion.
Simultaneously, with public attention largely focused on regional tensions, the government appears to be using this moment as a window of opportunity to advance a project that had been stalled for decades. Critics say E1 is part of this broader strategy, particularly among the Israeli far right, to entrench Israeli control and block Palestinian statehood.