Israel has added a tender for 2,167 housing units to its E1 settlement expansion plan, Israeli rights groups said of a project that critics say endangers a future Palestinian state.
The tender for 2,167 units is in addition to a tender for 1,234 units announced at the end of August, bringing the total number of housing units to 3,401, Israeli rights group Ir Amim said in a statement issued late on Wednesday (September 16, 2026).
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultra-nationalist in the governing right-wing coalition, has said the plan would “bury” a Palestinian state. The decision was condemned by a representative for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday who said the E1 tenders were in violation of international law.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Britain, France and Canada banned exports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank last week. Under Israel’s right-wing coalition government there has been a massive expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Ir Amim said the bidding date showed the government’s resolve to push ahead with the E1 project and “create an increasingly irreversible reality on the ground ahead of the elections. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has said the E1 project risks making a Palestinian state unviable.
