Israel opens up tenders for controversial West Bank settlement project

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem – land Palestinians want, along with Gaza, for a hoped-for future state – during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

Despite the fierce international opposition, successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow.

However, expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Under international pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in E1.

Many of its allies and Palestinians argued these would deal a major blow to hopes of a two-state solution, effectively bisecting the West Bank.

But the current Israeli government gave the go-ahead for E1 construction a year ago, expressly to “erase” the idea of a Palestinian state.

Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, the housing ministry has now issued a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the Israeli government last August.

It covers about 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim.

At the time of their unveiling, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is ultranationalist and settler, said the idea of a Palestinian state was “being erased”.

The deadline for bids is 19 October, just days before Israel’s general election on 27 October. That should enable the government to sign deals with contractors that it would be much harder for a future government to cancel.