Government opens bidding to build 1,200 homes in controversial E1 settlement project

The government on Tuesday issued a tender for the construction of seven residential compounds housing 1,234 housing units in the E1 area east of Jerusalem, where Israeli settlement activists seek to divide the West Bank.

The tender published by the Construction and Housing Ministry gives contractors until October 19 to bid on the project — a week before the October 27 parliamentary election.

The housing units in the tender are some of the roughly 3,400 E1 housing units that were greenlit last August. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lauded the E1 expansion plan at the time, saying it “practically erases the two-state delusion” by splitting up the territory that would be slated for a Palestinian state. (Read More)