Israel green lights over 1,000 settlement homes, hundreds more to be marketed

The Defense Ministry committee responsible for authorizing settlement construction advances plans for over 1,000 homes in the West Bank, with hundreds more expected to be marketed in the coming days.

Of the 1,002 homes green-lighted by the Civil Administration’s High Planning subcommittee, 382 gain final approval for construction while 620 clear an earlier planning stage known as a “deposit.”

The Defense Ministry is also slated to approve hundreds of homes for “marketing,” an extra stage required for projects in larger settlements. According to a Civil Administration official, these projects include ones in Alfei Menashe east of Kfar Saba and Ma’ale Efraim in the Jordan Valley.

Earlier in August, over 500 homes were approved for marketing in the Beit Aryeh settlement, southeast of Rosh Ha’ayin.

Among the plans advanced for deposit is a project for 370 homes in the central West Bank settlement of Adam, where Yotam Ovadia was stabbed to death in a terror attack last month.

After the incident, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced he would be advancing a plan for hundreds of homes to be built in the settlement. While he did not say so explicitly, he was referring to the already existing plan advanced today.