Israel has invited tenders for more than 1,200 settlement homes in the strategically important E-1 area of the occupied West Bank. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Canada expressed strong concern and called the decision “unacceptable” in a joint statement, urging its immediate withdrawal. Israel’s Housing Ministry published tenders on Wednesday for 1,234 homes within 3,401 approved housing units.

The E-1 area covers about 12 square kilometres between East Jerusalem and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. The deadline for submitting bids is October 19, only days before Israel’s general election. The UN secretary-general said the E-1 project poses an “existential threat” to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Palestinians fear the construction would effectively divide the West Bank into northern and southern sections while isolating East Jerusalem, undermining prospects for a two-state solution. Palestinian and project opponents say it would obstruct direct links between the West Bank’s north and south and make it harder to create a contiguous Palestinian territory connecting Ramallah, East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Since the 1967 war, about 700,000 Jewish people have lived in roughly 160 Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.