E1 (short for "East 1"; ), also called the E1 area, E1 zone or E1 corridor, is an area of the Israeli-occupied West Bank within the municipal boundary of the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. It is located adjacent to and northeast of East Jerusalem and to the west of Ma'ale Adumim. It covers an area of , which is home to a number of Bedouin communities including the village of Khan al-Ahmar. The national headquarters of the Israel Police is also located there.
Construction in E1 is controversial and has received mixed international response. When Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved construction plans for 3,400 new homes in August 2025, he spoke of "burying the Two-state solution". Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu employed the same rationale, adding that the land belonged to Israel. According to opponents of the plan, it will prevent expansion of East Jerusalem by creating a physical link between Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem.possible peace between Israel and Palestine, By Menachem Klein, Haim Watzman, Columbia University Press, 2007, , , Page 74. A crescent of Israeli settlements around East Jerusalem will divide it from the West Bank, creating a continuous Jewish population between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim while jeopardizing the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state. Palestinians describe the E1 plan as an effort to Judaize Jerusalem.Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory , Palestinian Center for Human Rights, accessdate 6 May 2009Jerusalem , Passia, accessdate 6 May 2009, Global GeoPolitics News, accessdate 6 May 2009
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.
Geography and plan Situated in the West Bank, the E1 area is bordered by the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem to the west, Abu Dis to the southwest, Kedar to the south, Ma'ale Adumim to the east, and Almon to the north. The area is mountainous and covers almost 3,000 acres. The E1 area runs between the easternmost edges of annexed East Jerusalem and nearby Ma'ale Adumim, a large Israeli settlement located East of the pre-1967 green line. E1 falls within Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli military and civilian control, and is administered by Ma'ale Adumim.
The plan for the E1 area within the municipal boundary of Ma'ale Adumim, sought to develop the area in order to link Ma'ale Adumim and its 40,000 residents to Jerusalem. 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. Also a garbage dump and a large cemetery to be shared by Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim.
The proposed construction of a further new road around the settlement of Kedar in 2009 was also seen as attempting to facilitate residential development in E1.
The disputed E1 area is located in the West Bank and spans the area between Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. The land in question comprises about 12,000 dunams, which is roughly .
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.
Timeline
During the government of Yitzhak Shamir in 1991 part of the area currently known as E1 was transferred to the Ma'ale Adumim local council. In January 1994, the Higher Planning Council of Judea and Samaria's Subcommittee for Settlement tabled a new plan that expanded the municipal plan for Ma'ale Adumim and, in effect, constituted the basis for the future E1 Plan. 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. Rabin, however, refrained from implementing any construction in the E1 area. From then on, planning and authorization procedures for the E1 neighborhood were promoted but were never totally completed, given the diplomatic constraints.
E1 lies within Area C, where Israel retained the powers of zoning and planning. 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.Second Maʹale Adumim outline plan 420/4, approved 1999.
Since Yitzhak Rabin every Israeli prime minister has supported the plan to create Israeli urban contiguity between Ma'ale Adumim and Jerusalem.
On 13 March 1996, Prime Minister Shimon Peres reaffirmed the government's position that Israel will demand applying Israeli sovereignty over Ma'aleh Adumim in the framework of a permanent peace agreement. Yossi Beilin, a dovish politician and co-author of the Geneva Initiative, supported annexing Ma'aleh Adumim. According to a document of understandings between former minister Yossi Beilin and Mahmoud Abbas from the mid-1990s, while some Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods were to be transferred to a future Palestinian state, Israel was to annex the Jewish communities around Jerusalem, such as Ma'ale Adumim, Givat Zeev, Beitar, and Efrat. According to the Clinton outline for partitioning Jerusalem that arose in the talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the 2000 Camp David Summit, Israel was to be compensated for partitioning the city by annexing Ma'ale Adumim.
During the Ehud Barak government, the Prime Minister expressed support for E1 but refrained from undertaking any construction in the E1 area. Barak did place the issue of E1 on the negotiating table at Taba and the matter remained unresolved when the Taba talks broke up.
In 2002, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer the Minister of Defense signed the Master Plan for E1 (expedited, but not approved under Netanyahu administration) into law. Ben Eliezer subsequently pledged to the U.S. administration not to implement the E1 plan, and indeed no further statutory planning was carried out and there was no construction in E1 during his tenure in office.
In mid-2004, construction commenced on infrastructure in E1. The work was carried out by the Ministry of Construction and was illegal: in the absence of a Specific Town Plan, no permits could be or were issued to allow for this work. The work included the clearing of roads for major highways leading to the planned residential areas and site preparation for the planned police station which would also incorporate the police station in Ras Al Amud which would be transferred there.
During the 2007 Annapolis Conference, then-prime minister Ehud Olmert and then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni demanded that Ma'aleh Adumim remain a part of Israel. During the Netanyahu government, the Prime Minister attempted to expedite the E1 Master Plan. A first statutory step to implementation of the plan, which includes general land designations but is not specific enough to allow the issuance of building permits, was undertaken, along with the establishment of a Greater Jerusalem umbrella municipality which was to include Ma'ale Adumim. Netanyahu's also declared that "the State of Israel will continue to build in Jerusalem and in all the places on the state's strategic map" is a continuation of the political tradition that views control over E1 as a cardinal Israeli interest.
Since 2008, the headquarters of the Judea and Samaria district of the Israeli Police Department are situated in the E1.
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. EU ministers expressed their "dismay" and five European countries summoned Israeli ambassadors to protest.
The Palestinian tent site of Bab al Shams, which was established for several days in early 2013, also lay within this area.
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.
On 25 February 2020, Netanyahu announced the promotion of the equally frozen construction plans for E1, met with EU condemnation on 28 February.
Then Defense Minister Naftali Bennett announced on 9 March 2020, the approval of a new road which would connect with Route 4370 near az-Za'ayyem just east of Jerusalem, and run to areas near Al-Azariya and 'Arab al-Jahalin and intended to separate Palestinians and Israelis driving in the area. Currently, in order to cross the Adumim bloc, Palestinians need to drive on Route 1. The construction of this road is seen as a major step toward settlement building in E1.
On 31 July 2020, the European Union and 15 European countries expressed their grave concerns regarding the advancement of settlement construction in Givat HaMatos and potentially in the E1 area. 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. At the beginning of July 2022, Twenty-nine Democrats, in the run-up to a scheduled visit to Israel by US President Joe Biden, again called for the Biden administration to prevent the construction of a "doomsday" settlement between Jerusalem and the West Bank that critics say threatens the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state. On 4 July 2022, Israeli authorities delayed a hearing to advance the project until 12 September.
In August 2025, Israel approved a plan to construct 3,401 new housing units in the area. In announcing the approval, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly stated that the intention was to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. As part of the plan, tenders for the construction of 1,234 new housing units were issued on 18 August 2026. This drew widespread condemnation from Israel's European allies. Human Rights Watch called on states to impose sanctions, the United Kingdom threatened do so, and other European countries were reported to be considering similar steps.
In September 2026, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that its global human rights sanctions regime would be extended to “enable swifter action to deter settlement expansion”. France and Canada announced their own measures in concert with the those of the UK. Millibrand noted that the measures brought the UK, France, and Canada into alignment with the policies of the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway, and that Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden "will support further action."
Following these remarks by Millibrand, United Kingdom Parliamentary under-secretary of state Stewart Wood said that the changes would be brought into force “in the next few weeks”. The UK government also set out further sanctions against settlers alleged to have supported or incited violence against Palestinians, bringing the total number of individuals sanctioned to 38.
Objectives The Israeli government says that the E1 plan is critical to Israeli national security interests and poses no threat to the formation of a continuous Palestinian state in the West Bank. Israeli military officials claim that E1 is necessary for Israel to possess defensible borders, primarily for the protection of the capital, Jerusalem. Despite his conservative background, many Israelis accused the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of holding back settlement plans in a bid to please the Obama administration.