More than 7,000 Palestinians living in 46 Bedouin communities around Jerusalem are at serious risk of forced displacement as Israel accelerates work on the controversial E1 settlement expansion plan, according to local officials and rights groups.
The E1 project aims to link the large settlement of Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem, a move that would sever the geographic continuity of the northern and southern West Bank and deeply alter the region’s demographics. Critics say the plan would effectively encircle East Jerusalem with settlements and isolate Palestinian communities.
According to the Jerusalem Governorate, occupation authorities are carrying out a “systematic campaign of uprooting” by issuing eviction notices, seizing land, demolishing structures, cutting off infrastructure, and damaging water supplies and livelihoods.
Bedouin residents report increasing pressures, including harassment by settlers and soldiers, blocked access to grazing lands, theft of livestock, and destruction of crops — all contributing to unbearable living conditions many view as a strategy of silent displacement.
Local defenders of Bedouin rights warn that if implemented, these policies could fragment Palestinian presence around Jerusalem and make a contiguous Palestinian state geographically unviable, calling for urgent international intervention and protection measures.