Israel Advances E1 Settlement Tender That Critics Say Would Split the West Bank in Two

A tender notice has gone out for a stretch of open land east of Jerusalem, and the group that tracks such things says it could mean bulldozers by the end of January. Yoni Mizrahi, who runs the settlement watch division at the anti-settlement monitor Peace Now, said the new process opens the way for developers to submit bids on what is known as the E1 project.

E1 is not a new idea. The plan has been under consideration for more than two decades, and for much of that time it sat frozen, held back by pressure from previous US administrations. The tender suggests that the freeze has now given way to something faster. Peace Now describes the publication of the tender as reflecting an accelerated effort to advance construction in E1.

The location is the heart of the dispute. The project would run from the outskirts of Jerusalem deep into the occupied West Bank. Critics argue that this geography would effectively cut the territory in two, and that it would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state. The international community overwhelmingly regards Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank as illegal and as an obstacle to peace.

The plan's most prominent champion is Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right Finance Minister, who oversees settlement policy and has long pushed for E1 to become real. When Israel gave final approval to the plan in August of last year, he was explicit about what he saw it accomplishing. The Palestinian state, he said, was being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions. Every settlement, every neighbourhood and every housing unit, he said, was another nail in the coffin of what he called a dangerous idea.

The settlement news arrived alongside developments in Gaza. On Tuesday, the United Nations said aid groups now have enough food on hand to sustain people in the enclave for the first time since the war began more than two years ago. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the January round was the first since October 2023 in which partners had sufficient stock to meet 100 per cent of the minimum caloric standard.

That milestone sits uneasily beside the account of what has been allowed in. The Israelis have restricted the flow of much-needed humanitarian aid into Gaza despite commitments made in the ceasefire agreement that took effect on October 10, according to the source reporting. On Tuesday the European Union's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called on Israel to lift the restrictions to avert deaths from exposure, hunger and a lack of medicines, as thousands of displaced Palestinians return to what is left of their homes.

In a statement on behalf of the 27-nation bloc, Kallas said that to deliver aid rapidly, safely and at the required scale, international NGOs must be able to operate in a sustained and predictable way.

What to watch now is whether the tender actually turns into construction before the month is out, as Peace Now warns it might, and how governments that call settlements illegal respond once work on E1 begins.