After a pause since 2021, Israeli occupation authorities have reinitiated plans to expand illegal colonial construction in the E1 zone, located east of occupied Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.
A report published Monday by Israeli daily Haaretz indicates that the renewed effort threatens to bisect the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, further undermining Palestinian territorial continuity.
Israel’s so-called “Higher Planning Council,” operating under the “Civil Administration,” the administrative branch of Israel’s illegal occupation, and is run by the Israeli “Ministry of Defense,” will hold a session on August 6 to “review formal objections to the project, marking the conclusion of the objection process.”
Palestinian residents of the area, along with organizations such as the Israeli Peace Now, Ir Amim, and the Association for Environmental Justice, have submitted objections warning that “the plan would destroy the final remaining tract of land linking the urban centers of Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem.”
This corridor is home to nearly one million Palestinians and is crucial for preserving geographic cohesion.
Opposition groups argue that the project poses a serious threat to any future resolution, establishing a continuous line of Israeli colonial infrastructure from the heart of the West Bank to occupied Jerusalem. This would effectively derail prospects for territorial contiguity and block the foundation of a viable Palestinian state.
The E1 proposal calls for the development of 3,412 new “housing units” across two separate programs within existing colonies.
Previous International pressure, including from some U.S. Administrations, has slowed the project’s progress over the years due to widespread concern it could permanently obstruct Palestinian statehood.
Covering approximately 12 square kilometers, the E1 area falls within the municipal boundaries of the illegal Israeli colony of Ma’ale Adumim, situated to its north and west. Although introduced during the Rabin administration, the initiative was suspended in 2005 due to political constraints.
In March 2025, Israel’s so-called “Security Cabinet” of the fanatic, colonialist-led government of Benjamin Netanyahu, approved the construction of a segregated roadway for Palestinians south of E1.
The road is intended to enable future annexation of Ma’ale Adumim and reroute Palestinian vehicles away from Route 1, effectively segregating the highway, only allowing Israeli colonizers and Jewish residents traveling between Ma’ale Adumim and occupied Jerusalem.
In its official objection, Peace Now said: “The Netanyahu-Smotrich government is exploiting the war in Gaza and the current internal and international power dynamics to establish facts on the ground that would eliminate any prospect for peace and a two-state reality, and added, “The government is condemning us to continued conflict and bloodshed and is leading Israel to the edge of the abyss. Advancing the E1 plan could be a generational disaster that would make peace even harder to achieve in the future.”
“This government is dragging Israel toward perpetual conflict and bloodshed. Implementing this project would be a historic catastrophe, making a peaceful future more elusive than ever.”
On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces illegally confiscated 5 dunums and 163 square meters of land from the towns of Sa’ir and Shiokh, in Hebron, located in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, under a military order citing what it called “security and military purposes.”
In related news, Israel is advancing plans to construct 2,339 illegal colonialist units across the northern, central, and southern regions of the occupied West Bank, a statement issued by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance of Settlement, revealed.
On Friday, Illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers carried out numerous attacks against Palestinians, their homes, and their lands across several areas of the occupied West Bank.
The colonizers killed two Palestinians, including a Palestinian-American, while many others were wounded, and several properties sustained damage in Sinjil town, northwest of the central West Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli soldiers also abducted a child and a young man in Salfit, in the central West Bank.
Early Friday morning, at least 30 Palestinian families were forcibly displaced from the Arab al-Mleihat Bedouin community, situated at the end of the Mu’arrajat road northwest of Jericho, in the northeastern part of the occupied West Bank.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”
Since the beginning of this year, Israeli soldiers and paramilitary colonizers have killed 177 Palestinians, including 31 children and 8 women.
60 Palestinians were killed in Jenin, 32 in Nablus, 26 in Tubas, 17 in Tulkarem, 12 in Hebron, 11 in Ramallah, 6 in Bethlehem, 4 in Qalqilia, 3 in Salfit, 5 in Jerusalem and 1 in Jericho.
