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E1 tender sparks row
Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar rejected UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s demand to halt the E1 settlement project after Israeli authorities opened bidding for more than 1,200 homes in the occupied West Bank.
“called the move "an unacceptable and destructive act"”
Miliband said the move was “an unacceptable and destructive act” and warned it would “endanger the viability of a two-state solution,” while the UK said it had summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires and demanded the Israeli government halt E1 plans, retract the tender, and stop settlement expansion.
The E1 plan, green-lit by Israel last year, would further separate east Jerusalem, occupied and annexed by Israel and predominantly inhabited by Palestinians, from the West Bank, and the UN secretary general had said at the time that E1 posed an “existential threat” to a contiguous Palestinian state.
The latest tender covers more than 1,200 housing units, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now, with submissions due by October 19, one week before Israeli elections scheduled for October 27.
France 24 reported that Miliband delivered the message directly to his Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar and that Israel’s charge d'affaires was summoned to the foreign ministry.
Sanctions threatened, rebuttal
The UK said it would prepare targeted sanctions against people involved in Israeli settlement expansion and other measures in response to the E1 project east of Jerusalem, and Miliband said the British government would announce a broader package of measures in the coming weeks.
Miliband told reporters, “Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the Two-State Solution,” while the Jerusalem Post said Israel moved forward with marketing of the first 1,400 housing units in E1 as part of a larger plan for 3,412 homes.
Sa’ar responded by rejecting “outright” Miliband’s statement and wrote on X that “The Jewish people have the right to live throughout the Land of Israel, just as the British have the right to live in London and throughout the United Kingdom.”
Ynetnews described the UK’s position as “Unacceptable, destructive and endangering the two-state solution,” and said Miliband summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires in Britain, Christian Cantor, for a reprimand.
The dispute unfolded as the E1 tender deadline for bids was set for October 19, about a week before the election date of October 27, according to Ynetnews.
Two-state stakes and fallout
The Palestinian Authority and the UK condemned the Israeli decision to issue a tender for more than 1,200 new housing units under Israel’s E1 settlement project, with the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission warning that advancing the plans would confine Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to “disconnected enclaves surrounded by settlements.”
“disconnected enclaves surrounded by settlements”
Al Jazeera reported that the plan approved by Israel last year aims to build more than 3,400 housing units on roughly 12 square kilometers of Palestinian land and would link thousands of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem to the Maale Adumim settlement bloc, effectively bisecting the West Bank.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said that if the E1 project were realized, it would be the “last nail in the coffin” of the two-state solution, adding that the E1 project had been delayed several times but was now “happening on the ground.”
Ir Amim said in a news release that even a “partial implementation would create irreversible facts on the ground,” fundamentally altering the geographic and strategic character of the area by severing the northern West Bank from the south and isolating East Jerusalem.
Peace Now accused the “Netanyahu-Smotrich government” of trying to bury the two-state solution through the project, and said implementing E1 and closing the area to Palestinians threatens to disconnect dozens of Bedouin communities, including Khan al-Ahmar, and lead to their expulsion from their land.
