E1 Settlement Tender Slated to Open for Bids on August 5, 2026

The Israel Land Authority just published new dates for the opening of the tender for construction of 3,401 housing units in E1. According to the updated schedule, the tender will open for bids on August 5, 2026 and will close on October 5, 2026. Alongside this, a new date was also published for another tender designated for the construction of an employment and commercial zone in E1 and will open for bids on July 20, 2026 and close on September 14, 2026.

The new dates were published despite the fact that petitions against the E1 settlement project remain pending before the District Court. These include a petition filed by Attorney Michael Sfard on behalf of Ir Amim, Bimkom and Peace Now. While the June 15th court hearing on the petitions delivered an interim positive outcome, there is currently no standing injunction to halt or freeze the opening of the tenders. The court ordered the state and the Ma’ale Adumim settlement municipality to file a detailed response to the petitions’ arguments by September 1, 2026, suggesting that the petitions’ core legal questions carry sufficient weight and warrant fuller deliberations. Therefore, the court declined the state’s request to dismiss the petitions outright, allowing them to proceed to the merits phase, after which it will issue a ruling.

Nevertheless, in light of the government’s resolve to expedite the process, especially ahead of Israel’s upcoming national elections, sustained international engagement on this issue remains imperative.

Though the combination of settlement construction, restrictions on Palestinian movement and access, and the displacement of Palestinian communities in this strategic area, Israel is effectively advancing the annexation of E1 without any formal declaration. Such moves will bisect the West Bank, sever it from East Jerusalem, and displace thousands of Palestinians, dealing a death blow to the viability of a two-state framework with two capitals in Jerusalem.

Background
Advancement of the E1 settlement project is among the numerous measures taken by the Israeli government to accelerate full annexation of the West Bank. After being intermittently frozen for years due to international opposition and pressure, the two E1 plans for 3401 housing units were formally approved by the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Council in August 2025. Minister Smotrich stated at the time, “Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty that we began implementing with the establishment of the government.”

In parallel, the government also allocated approximately 3 billion NIS for accelerated development and infrastructure in the E1 and Ma’ale Adumim area.

On December 10, 2025, the Israeli government formally issued a tender (Tender no. 460/2025) for all 3401 housing units which was published on the Israel Land Authority website. The official opening of the tender for bids has been repeatedly postponed over the past few months. Alongside this, a tender was issued on March 5, 2026 by the Israel Land Authority for the construction of a new employment and commercial zone in the E1 area. The planned employment zone spans 1,355 dunams of land east of Anata along the western side of E1, with access to the area planned from the direction of Jerusalem. Together, these steps will further create Israeli territorial contiguity between Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem while fragmenting the Palestinian space in the area.

Road Infrastructure 
As part of laying the groundwork for settlement construction in E1, the government is in parallel continuing to advance plans for construction of the bypass road for Palestinians, known as the “Fabric of Life” road. Coined the “Sovereignty Road” by Naftali Bennett during his stint as Defense Minister in 2020, the planned road will reroute Palestinian traffic out of the E1/Ma’ale Adumim corridor and allow Israel to seal off a vast area in the heart of the West Bank to Palestinians. Once the road is constructed, Israel intends to move the checkpoint from its current location near Az Za’yim to a point east of the Kfar Adumim settlement, approximately 14 kilometers east of the Green Line. In May 2026, the Civil Administration demolished dozens of Palestinian shops and businesses along the eastern entrance to Al-Eizariya as a preliminary step ahead of the road’s construction.

Displacement of Palestinian Communities
In tandem, Palestinian communities in the E1 area, including Khan al-Ahmar, are facing an increasingly imminent threat of displacement. On May 19, 2026, Minister Smotrich instructed the authorities to advance the evacuation and demolition of Khan al-Ahmar. That same day, the Israeli Civil Administration issued a land seizure order for a strip of land running directly through part of the village to facilitate construction of a water line between the settlements of Mishor Adumim and Kfar Adumim. This places community structures at immediate risk of destruction and could serve as a pretext for accelerating the community’s evacuation, as well as restricting movement and access to and from the area. These measures come against the backdrop of a broader government plan to forcibly displace Palestinian Bedouin communities from the E1 area and transfer them to a site near Abu Dis, directly adjacent to a massive landfill. On June 29, 2026, the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Council held a hearing on objections filed against the plan and decided to schedule an additional hearing on objections.

As underscored in Ir Amim’s recent report, “Greater Jerusalem”–Expulsion and Annexation, while the topic of annexation has largely been understood as the deepening of Israeli control over the space, application of Israeli sovereignty, and the obstruction of a future Palestinian state, the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities is central to the annexation paradigm. Expulsion and displacement are not mere side effects of annexation, but rather inextricable components of it. These developments are part of a broader Israeli government agenda across the West Bank: expanding Israeli territorial contiguity while uprooting and pushing Palestinians into disconnected enclaves within an increasingly fragmented Palestinian space. This strategy is unfolding throughout the West Bank, but it is especially visible around Jerusalem.