Former European officials urge EU to sanction E1 project and trade with illegal West Bank settlements

Call to action signed by more than 500 former ministers, former ambassadors and senior European officials.

In a matter of weeks, the Israeli government plans to award contracts for the first phase of the illegal E1 settlement project, an initiative that, if carried out, would divide the West Bank in two and make impossible the two-state solution, the only viable path to resolving the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Despite the drastic consequences of this new land annexation, the EU has not taken measures to stop the E1 project nor, more generally, has it fulfilled its obligations under the Union's treaties or its duty to act against violations of international law.

While some EU Member States are to be commended for taking national action against illegal settlements, others – including Germany and Italy – continue to systematically block action at EU level, becoming de facto complicit in the undermining of both the Union's values ​​and the two-state solution.

We urge the European Commission to exercise active leadership by immediately presenting legislative proposals to:

Sanction all financial institutions and other service providers that contribute to the implementation of the E1 project and other illegal settlements, as already requested in our statement of May 6, 2026;

Prevent all EU trade with illegal settlements.

In parallel, we demand that the EU implement the long-delayed proposals to suspend the trade provisions of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

Decisions on these measures must be taken at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers, scheduled for 12 October.

The Twenty-Seven will meet after another year marked by violence and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.

The situation, as noted by the leaders of many Member States at the United Nations General Assembly, is deeply alarming:

In Gaza, another 1,400 Palestinians, including 200 children, have died in the year since the ceasefire of October 11, 2025. Since the heinous Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the shocking death toll inflicted by the IDF on Palestinians in Gaza has risen to 74,000, including more than 21,600 children, with 175,000 people injured. The humanitarian situation remains critical for the 2 million people crammed into less than 40% of Gaza territory, with insufficient supplies of all essentials for human life – food, sanitation, electricity, shelter, medical supplies – due to draconian restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, in defiance of humanitarian principles and the 2024/25 International Court of Justice (ICJ) provisional measures and advisory opinions. There has been no disarmament or withdrawal of the IDF, reconstruction is blocked and the Peace Board's plans to reactivate Gaza remain inactive and have no signs of prospering. The ban on access to international journalists remains. Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to ignore binding measures imposed in 2024 by the ICJ's preliminary findings in the genocide case brought by South Africa, while many EU Member States fail to use the means (e.g. banning arms sales) reasonably available to them to enforce ICJ decisions.

• In the West Bank, in addition to the E1 project, an epidemic of state-backed settler violence (more than 1,600 attacks in 2026 alone) is spreading throughout the territory, causing continued displacement, killings and injuries of Palestinians. More than 1,200 Palestinians have tragically lost their lives over the past three years, as Israel's land grab and settlement construction has accelerated – with complete impunity and at an unprecedented pace – in defiance of the ICJ's July 2024 Advisory Opinion.