UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada denounce E1 housing tenders as 'unacceptable'

The UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada have issued a rare joint condemnation of Israel's plans to open tenders for the construction of some 1,200 settlement homes in the E1 corridor, a strategically vital area of the occupied West Bank. In a joint statement, the five nations called the decision "unacceptable" and urged Israel to "retract the plans immediately", warning that the development would take both sides further from peace and further undermine Israel's international standing.

All settlements are illegal under international law, and for decades Israel had held off on building in E1, east of Jerusalem, under intense international pressure. Allies and Palestinians have long argued that development there would deal a crippling blow to the two-state solution, effectively cutting the West Bank in two and isolating east Jerusalem. The statement said the decision was "even more concerning" at a time of grave instability in the West Bank, with unprecedented levels of settler violence against civilians and severe restrictions on the Palestinian economy. The UN secretary-general separately described the plan as an "existential threat" to a contiguous Palestinian state, a view echoed by Belgium's foreign minister.

Despite fierce international opposition, the Israeli housing ministry issued a tender on Wednesday for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the government last August, covering about 12 square kilometres between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim. The deadline for bids is 19 October, just days before Israel's general election on 27 October, making it difficult for any future government to overturn the tenders. Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups have mounted a court challenge to the plans.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist and settler, said at the time of their unveiling that the idea of a Palestinian state was "being erased". Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 war, while an estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them. Expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, and since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Opponents of the E1 project have warned that it would effectively block the establishment of a Palestinian state by cutting off the north of the West Bank from the south and preventing the development of a contiguous Palestinian urban area connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's condemnation earlier on Thursday drew an "outright" rejection from the Israeli foreign minister.