(JNS) The Israel Lands Authority, which manages most of the lands in Israel, on Tuesday announced it would market to contractors and entrepreneurs the first 1,400 housing units of E1 (“East 1”), a strategically significant area in Judea and Samaria. Contractors who win the bids will construct the units.
The importance of E1 lies in its location. The 12-square-kilometer (4.6-sq.-mile) area sits between Ma’ale Adumim, a Jewish city of about 40,000 in the Judean Desert, and Jerusalem.
Once built up, E1 will connect Ma’ale Adumim to the capital, forming a larger metropolis, preventing the Palestinian Authority from surrounding Jerusalem with its own metropolis, which would include Ramallah, eastern parts of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. (The PA intends to wrest from Israel eastern sections of Jerusalem for its own future capital.)
Israeli security analysts have long warned that Jerusalem will become a border town if the surrounding Arab settlement is allowed to continue unhindered. The answer, they say, is E1, which would protect Jerusalem, drive a wedge through the nearly contiguous Arab settlement enveloping it and ensure Jewish territorial contiguity eastward to the Jordan Valley.
Until now, the PA has been winning the contiguity battle, building illegally on Israeli-controlled land. Arab settlement snakes along the eastern side of Jerusalem north to Ramallah and south to Bethlehem.
Both sides agree E1 construction threatens Arab geographic contiguity. At an on-site press conference held in Ma’ale Adumim on Aug. 14, 2025, to celebrate the government’s historic announcement, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that E1 construction “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”
The PA said the same thing. Wafa, its official news site, described E1’s chief objective as “undermining the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
E1 construction was first proposed in 1994 by Israel’s then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. International pressure has been the main reason construction has not moved forward, even though support for the plan enjoys national consensus. All prime ministers since Rabin have voiced approval for the proposal.
On Tuesday, Ma’ale Adumim Mayor Guy Yifrach celebrated E1’s shift from the planning to the implementation stage.
“After more than 30 years of promises, struggles and international pressure, today we are turning a vision into reality,” he said in a statement provided to JNS by the municipality. “The first 1,400 housing units are underway and will be joined by about 2,000 more units later. E1 will connect Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem and ensure the city’s continued growth for future generations.”
He thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Smotrich. “After three decades, you can say: E1 is becoming a reality,” he said.
Once completed, the full E1 plan will include about 3,400 housing units.
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