Live Update 
From the Liveblog of
Sunday, June 18, 2023
From the Liveblog of
Sunday, June 18, 2023
Cabinet okays measure shortening approval process to build in West Bank settlements
New apartments buildings under construction in the Beit El settlement in the West Bank with the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the background, October 13, 2020. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
The government approves a resolution aimed at shortening the approval process for construction in West Bank settlements, slashing the number of a times a project must be authorized to be shovel-ready.
The measure also will hand Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionism party and is also a minister in the Defense Ministry, control over one of the two stages that will now make up the approval process.
The vote comes ahead of a planned vote next week to approve several thousand new settlement homes.
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