448 European Officials Urge EU Sanctions Against Israel’s E1 West Bank Settlement Project

More than 400 former diplomats, ministers, and senior officials urged the European Union to “act now” against Israel’s “illegal” settlements in the occupied West Bank through the E1 project. Le Monde reports the open letter was signed by 448 figures, including former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, and it calls for targeted sanctions such as visa bans and business restrictions. The letter says Israel intends to move forward with E1, a new construction project covering around 12 square kilometres and some 3,400 housing units, which it says would further separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank. It also states that Israel plans to publish an initial tender on June 1 for housing for up to 15,000 “illegal settlers,” and that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman warned the plan would pose an “existential threat” to a contiguous Palestinian state.

The open letter’s signatories urged EU leaders to take immediate steps to deter Israel from continuing what they described as “illegal annexation” via the E1 project, and Middle East Monitor says the 448 signatories included Josep Borrell and Guy Verhofstadt. Middle East Monitor reports the signatories said the Israeli government intends “on 1stJune to launch detailed tenders” for the E1 project area, and it adds that they urged action “particularly at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting on 11thMay.” RTE.ie similarly frames the E1 plan as one that would “bisect the West Bank in two and wreck any prospects of a two state solution,” and it says the statement calls for targeted sanctions including visa bans and prohibitions on doing business in the EU. RTE.ie also quotes the statement’s claim that “the Israeli government intends to publish on 1st June an initial tender” for construction in the E1 area for “3401 residential units” to provide housing for up to “15,000 illegal settlers.”

The letter and related reporting tie the E1 project to concerns about the territorial future of a Palestinian state, with Le Monde saying the move would further separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank and that excluding East Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank in settlements illegal under international law. Le Monde also says Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and that, in 2025, the expansion of Israeli settlements reached its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking data. Le Courrier reports that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the plan would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state, and it quotes him: “Each settlement, each neighborhood, each housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.” In parallel, Le Grand Continent says Smotrich set the objective “To bury the idea of a Palestinian state,” and it describes the E1 project as cutting the West Bank in two north to south and ending territorial continuity between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

“More than 400 former ministers, ambassadors and senior European officials have called on EU leaders to take immediate action against the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, according to an open letter published on May 6, as cited byBFM”

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