The government plan to populate the contentious area of E1, located between Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem, moved one step closer to fruition this week, when Ma’aleh Adumim Mayor Guy Yifrach announced the launch of the area’s first 1,400 housing units.
“This is tremendous news for Ma’ale Adumim, and major news for the State of Israel as a whole,” said Yifrach in a statement on Tuesday announcing the upcoming marketing of the units.
The E1 corridor is comprised of some 12 square kilometers inside the jurisdictional boundaries of Maale Adumim, and any construction there would become part of the existing settlement city.
Plans approved by the Civil Administration’s Higher Planning Committee in August 2025 would see 3,412 housing units ultimately built in E1, which would increase Ma’ale Adumim’s population, already one of the largest Jewish cities in the West Bank, by some 12,000 from its current 38,000.
Thanking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Yifrah said, “the construction of the E-1 neighborhood is vital to the future of Ma’ale Adumim, to its continued growth, expansion, and the strengthening of its position as a strong city in Israel.
“We have come a long way to reach this moment. There were obstacles, there were delays, and there were those who thought it would never happen. But we believed, we persevered, we took action, and we never
gave up.”
E1 construction faced decades of US opposition over West Bank location
Yifrach was referring to the decades-long opposition against building in the region by successive US administrations prior to US President Donald Trump, due to the area’s sensitive location that provides a corridor between the southern and northern West Bank.
Ma’aleh Adumim, some eight kilometers from Jerusalem, is in the national consensus of remaining part of Israel if an eventual Palestinian state is ever established. But E1 has proved far more contentious.
The plan to build the area was first developed by the Shamir government in 1991 and advanced by the Rabin government in the mid-1990s in an effort to create Israeli territorial contiguity around Jerusalem.
The plan was halted under the Rabin administration due to American objections, which have remained constant since then.
There have been periodic attempts to revive the plan, including by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004, but opposition from the US and the European Union has continued to shut down the efforts.
When Smotrich approved building on E1 last summer, he said it would provide the final nail in the coffin of aspirations for a Palestinian state.
“From the Palestinian perspective and that of the international community, this is a critical area. Without it, the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital is simply impossible,” he said at the time.
“Those around the world who try to recognize a Palestinian state will see our response on the ground – not with documents or declarations, but with facts: homes, roads, and Jewish families building their lives here. They will talk about a Palestinian dream – and we will continue to build a Jewish reality,” he said. “This reality buries the idea for good – there is nothing to recognize,” Smotrich added.
EU foreign policy chief Kallas says E1 plan would divide West Bank
Following Smotrich’s announcement, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that the E1 plan undermines the two-state solution, and, if implemented, would “permanently cut the geographical and territorial contiguity between occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank and sever the connection between the northern and southern West
Bank.”
In March 2025, the security cabinet approved the building of a new road which would connect the Palestinian villages of a-Za’im and al-Eizariya near Ma’aleh Adumim and would provide an alternative solution for Palestinians to drive between the northern and southern West Bank.
Detractors say that the road will not be enough to prevent Israel from effectively blocking a Palestinian state from having any contiguity. Undeterred, Yifrah lauded the upcoming campaign to sell the first homes in E1.
The first 1,400 housing units are only the beginning,” he said. “We will continue to build, develop, expand, and move Ma’ale Adumim forward.”