E1 (West Bank)
[2][3] It covers an area of 12 square kilometres (4.6 sq mi), which is home to a number of Bedouin communities including the village of Khan al-Ahmar and their livestock as well as a large Israeli police headquarters.
[14] It entails building about 3,500-15,000 housing units, the now-completed police headquarters of the Judea and Samaria district, as well as a large industrial zone, tourism, and commercial areas.
[3][17] If the E1 plan is fully implemented Palestinians could, theoretically, travel between the northern and southern West Bank via a road that at this time does not exist, looping around the Ma'ale Adumim bloc and the expanded area of Jerusalem.
There have also been suggestions for an alternate road route for Palestinians running north–south between Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem that uses overpasses and tunnels to bypass Israeli settlements.
Yitzhak Rabin expanded the borders of Ma'ale Adumim to include the area known as E1 and instructed Housing Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer to begin planning a neighborhood at the location.
Despite long-standing plans for the municipality of Ma'aleh Adumim to build 3000 new housing units on the E1 territory, Israel undertook unilateral limitations upon itself in this area.
[3] In 2002, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer the Minister of Defense signed the Master Plan for E1 (expedited, but not approved under Netanyahu administration) into law.
In December 2012, in response to the United Nations approving the Palestinian bid for "non-member observer state" status, Israel announced the next day that it was resuming planning and zoning work in E1 area.
[23] The Netanyahu government restarted work on the Eastern Ring Road (Route 4370) after it was frozen for many years because of its relationship to E1 and on 9 January 2019, the first section was opened.
[30] In 2021 Twenty-six House Democrats urged U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to pressure the Israeli government to prevent settlement construction in the E1 area between Jerusalem and the West Bank.
[34] Israeli military officials claim that E1 is necessary for Israel to possess defensible borders, primarily for the protection of the capital, Jerusalem.
[35] Despite his conservative background, many Israelis accuse the current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of holding back settlement plans in a bid to please the Obama administration.
The United States, EU and UN have supported the Palestinian position and has sought to block Israeli construction at the site, pending a final peace agreement.
[42][43] To address Palestinian concerns, Israel has constructed a series of bypass roads that allow access from East Jerusalem to the West Bank.
Israel's 2012 plan to move ahead with construction of 3,000 housing units in the E1 zone was faced with widespread international opposition.
In particular, the European Union put strong diplomatic pressure on Israel to reverse its decision,[50] and Britain and France threatened to take the unprecedented action of withdrawing their ambassadors in reaction.
[54] Israeli efforts to remove the Jahalin Bedouin who live on the E1 lands have also been interpreted as preparing the ground for settlement construction.
The European Union submitted a formal protest to the Israeli Foreign Ministry over evacuating Bedouin and tearing down Palestinians' houses in the E1 area in December 2011.
[55] In February 2012, Israeli authorities abandoned plans to resettle the Jahalin Bedouin to the Abu Dis garbage dump, but confirmed their intention to concentrate them in one location, which would be contrary to their traditional nomadic lifestyle, based on animals grazing.
[58] Following a supreme court ruling and less than 48 hours after beginning protest the activists were forcibly evacuated, but the tent site was left for six days while the issue of its removal was being discussed.
