In a joint statement issued Thursday, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway called the Israeli regime’s opening of construction tenders for the project “unacceptable” and said it violated “the territorial contiguity of the Palestinian Territories”.

The countries urged the Israeli regime “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.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry 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 said on social media that the plans “gravely undermine the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian homeland”.

The Israeli regime has abandoned “even the pretense of seeking peace or respecting the will of the international community”, he added.

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

Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law, while settlement development has accelerated since the start of the Israeli’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

The E1 project, slated to include at least 3,400 housing units, would connect occupied East Al-Quds to the Maale Adumim settlement area across roughly 12 square kilometers (4.6 square miles) of Palestinian land.

The project would bisect the West Bank from north to south and cut off its connection to East Al-Quds, which Palestinians have long identified as the preferred capital of their future state.

The Israeli regime gave final approval to the E1 plan last August, with hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich describing it as “historic”.

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

At least 21 countries condemned the plans at the time.

The Israeli regime’s decision to advance the expansion comes as rights groups warn of the mass displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank amid rising settler attacks and the expansion of illegal settlements.

Research by the UN’s humanitarian body found that more Palestinians were forcibly displaced by settler attacks, demolitions and evictions during the first four months of 2026 than throughout 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 push for settlement expansion to the Israeli regime’s upcoming elections in October.