Palestinians, UK condemn Israel’s ‘destructive’ E1 settlement plan
An area within the E1 territory, near the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim
Al Jazeera staff and Anadolu report in Al Jazeera on 19 August 2026:
The Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Kingdom have condemned an Israeli decision to issue a tender for more than 1,200 new housing units in the occupied West Bank under Israel’s E1 settlement project.
The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC), a PA government body affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), warned in a statement on Tuesday that advancing the plans would lead to confining Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to “disconnected enclaves surrounded by settlements”.
Israel’s E1 plan, approved by the government last year, aims to build more than 3,400 housing units on roughly 12sq km (4.6sq miles) of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlements and outposts are illegal under international law.
The plan would link thousands of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel has already illegally annexed, to the Maale Adumim settlement bloc in the West Bank. This would fully sever East Jerusalem, which Palestinians have long wanted as the capital of their future state, from the West Bank. It would also essentially bisect the West Bank.
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband called the move an “unacceptable and destructive act” that could undermine the prospect of a Palestinian state. Miliband said he had told Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that Israel must immediately halt the plans, withdraw the tender, and stop all settlement expansion. The Israeli charge d’affaires was also summoned to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where the UK demanded an immediate reversal.
The UK would soon set out measures to respond to Israeli government policies, Miliband said, including sanctions against those involved in illegal settlement expansion. “Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he said.
The submission of bids for the E1 project is due to close on October 19. That is just before elections are scheduled in Israel on October 27, in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government are expected to see falling support.