The ‘unacceptable’ E1 plan carries ‘legal and reputational consequences’ for those participating, European nations warn.

Israeli plans to build a major new illegal settlement that would cleave the occupied West Bank in two have provoked widespread condemnation from around the world.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway called Israel’s opening of construction tenders for more than 1,200 housing units under the E1 settlement project “unacceptable” and in violation of “the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories”.

The group warned of “legal and reputational consequences” for participants and urged Israel “to retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank”.

“Not only will they take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel’s international standing,” the statement added.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also expressed its “complete rejection of attempts to entrench the status quo through illegal settlement expansion” and called on the international community to “take serious steps to stop these violations”.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim wrote on social media that the plans “gravely undermine the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian homeland”.

Israel has abandoned “even the pretence of seeking peace or respecting the will of the international community”, he added.

The United Nations has also condemned the plan. The UN’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the secretary-general was “deeply alarmed by the reports of new illegal Israeli settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank”, including the new tenders.

Rising violence

Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied territory are illegal under international law, but their development has accelerated since the start of the Israeli government’s genocidal war on Gaza launched in October 2023.

The project, slated to include at least 3,400 units, would connect occupied East Jerusalem to the Maale Adumim settlement area on roughly 12 square kilometres (4.6sq miles) of Palestinian land.

The settlement would bisect the West Bank from north to south, cutting off the West Bank’s link to East Jerusalem, which for years Palestinians have cited as the preferred capital of their future state.

Israel gave final approvals to the E1 plan last August, with hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich hailing it as “historic”.

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions,” he boasted.

At least 21 countries condemned the plans at the time.

Israel’s decision to move forward with the expansion comes as rights groups warn of the mass displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank amid rising settler attacks and the growth of illegal settlements.

Research from the UN’s humanitarian body has found that more Palestinians were forcibly displaced by settler attacks, demolitions and evictions in the first four months of 2026 than in all of 2025.

Dozens of Palestinian communities in the West Bank are now at risk of erasure, Human Rights Watch said in a recent report.

Analysts have linked the scramble for settlements to Israel’s upcoming elections in October.