JENIN, West Bank — Israeli settlers moved into the hilltop settlement of Kadim on Thursday, restoring the last of four West Bank communities dismantled in 2005, as seven Western governments issued a joint condemnation of separate construction tenders for the E1 project east of Jerusalem.
The two moves, announced hours apart, expand Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank ahead of October elections and prompted the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada and Norway to warn companies against bidding on the E1 project.
Return to Kadim
Thirty "pioneer families" arrived at Kadim from Tel Aviv under military escort, some dragging trailers loaded with bedding, furniture and building material, the BBC reported. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich led the opening ceremony alongside the justice minister and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.
"21 years after the crime of expulsion from northern Samaria, we have completed the correction […] and have returned to the settlement of Kadim," Smotrich said, using the Biblical name for the northern West Bank.
Kadim was evacuated in 2005 under a Disengagement Plan that also removed Israeli settlers and soldiers from Gaza. It is the last of four northern West Bank settlements — alongside Ganim, Sanur and Homesh — to be reopened after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government overturned the two-decade ban on Jewish settlement around Jenin. The government has approved more than 100 new settlements in the West Bank since taking power in late 2022.
E1 tenders open
Israel's Ministry of Construction and Housing opened bids for 1,234 homes in the E1 corridor, part of a 3,400-unit plan to connect occupied East Jerusalem to the Ma'ale Adumim settlement across about 12 square kilometers of Palestinian land. Bids close October 19, eight days before Israeli elections scheduled for October 27.
The joint statement from the seven governments called the tenders "unacceptable" and warned of "legal and reputational consequences" for participating firms. The group urged Israel "to retract these plans immediately and end its expansion of settlements in the West Bank." UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband summoned Israel's chargé d'affaires and demanded the tenders be reversed.
The E1 project, first drafted in 1991, had been repeatedly shelved under US and European pressure before being revived under President Trump's second term, Al Jazeera reported. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.
The Israeli response
No right-leaning Israeli coverage of Thursday's actions appeared in the day's source set, and no Israeli official issued a direct rebuttal of the seven-nation statement. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir did reply on X to Miliband, writing: "Someone should update Ed that the British Mandate for the Land of Israel ended in 1948 and that Israel is an independent state." Smotrich has publicly framed the West Bank push as an assertion of Israeli sovereignty over what the government calls Judea and Samaria.
Israeli NGO Ir Amim, which is challenging the E1 tender in Jerusalem District Court, said the state has been ordered to submit a detailed response by September 1 — seven weeks before bids close and eight before Israelis vote.