The E-1 area is 4.6 square miles. It has an estimated 3,000 housing units built there. Palestinian leaders, the European Union, and the United States vigorously protest against Israel’s planned expansion of settlements in this area, in what is considered the West Bank, and a critical geographic nexus separating West Bank Palestinian areas in the north from those in the south.. Building in E-1 would allow Israel to fully encircle Jerusalem with Jewish settlement suburbs, built since the end of the June 1967 war. No time was set to initiate construction. In all of east Jerusalem, 200,000 Jews live interlaced among 300,000 Palestinians.