A coalition of Western nations has issued a sharp condemnation of Israel's decision to open construction tenders for the controversial E1 settlement project in the occupied West Bank, warning that the plan poses a serious threat to the prospect of a Palestinian state. The joint statement was signed by France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, and Norway, who collectively called on Israel to "retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank."

The E1 project involves the construction of approximately 3,400 homes for Israeli settlers on a roughly 12-square-kilometre tract of land east of Jerusalem, situated between the city and the existing Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. Israel's housing ministry issued a tender last week covering 1,234 of those units, with bids due by 19 October — just one week before Israeli parliamentary elections scheduled for 27 October. Peace Now, an Israeli NGO, accused the government of deliberately advancing construction commitments before the vote to make any future reversal more difficult. An Israeli court challenge to the plans, brought by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, has so far not halted the process.

Opponents of the project warn that E1 would effectively sever the northern West Bank from the south and block the development of a contiguous Palestinian urban corridor connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Bethlehem. The UN secretary-general previously described E1 as an "existential threat" to a viable Palestinian state. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist and settler himself, approved the plan last August, declaring that the idea of a Palestinian state was being "erased." The project was first conceived in the 1990s but has faced repeated international pressure that stalled its advancement until now.

The Western signatories also warned companies against submitting bids, cautioning that doing so risked "involving themselves in serious breaches of international law." The statement noted that the tender comes amid "unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians" and serious restrictions on the Palestinian economy across the West Bank. Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem has documented how settler violence has expanded into areas nominally under Palestinian Authority control.

Israel has built around 160 settlements housing approximately 700,000 Jewish Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since occupying both territories during the 1967 Middle East war — land that some 3.3 million Palestinians also inhabit and that Palestinians seek as the basis for a future state. Settlements are considered illegal under international law, a position Israel disputes. Settlement expansion has accelerated markedly since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to office in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler government, and has continued throughout the Gaza war triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.