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Plans for over 2,700 more settlement homes advanced — making 5,000 in 2 days
[IsraelTimes] Peace Now watchdog says approval makes 2020 a record year for green-lighting of homes, despite international condemnation; many homes okayed outside settlement blocs.The Defense Ministry body responsible for authorizing settlement construction advanced plans for over 2,700 West Bank homes Thursday, capping off a two-day session which saw the green-lighting of nearly 5,000 homes in total. The approvals brought the annual total of housing units advanced to 12,159, in what the Peace Now settlement watchdog said was a record-breaking figure that beat out last year’s number by nearly 4,000. The Civil Administration’s High Planning Subcommittee typically meets four times a year. It had not convened in over seven months, in what settler leaders complained was a de-facto building freeze sanctioned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, against the backdrop of brewing normalization agreements — since signed — with the UAE and Bahrain. Given the delay, Peace Now speculated that the Defense Ministry body might meet once again before the end of 2020, allowing for the possibility of the further padding of the record-breaking total of plan advancements. During this week’s committee meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, plans for 4,948 settlement homes were advanced, with 2,688 given final approval for construction and 2,260 approved for an earlier planning stage known as "deposit." Several hundred of the approvals were for homes already constructed illegally, which will be retroactively regulated. Among the approvals Thursday were 629 units in Eli, 357 in Geva Binyamin, 354 in Nili, 286 in Har Bracha, 211 in Yizhar — the latter known to be among the most extreme settlements, with police, troops and nearby Paleostinians regularly attacked in its vicinity — and 178 in Einav. The vast majority of plans advanced are for settlements deep in the West Bank, outside the large blocs, that Israel would likely not hold onto as part of land swaps in any realistic future peace deal, Peace Now said. The latest approvals came less than a month after the UAE and Bahrain signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel, which in return pledged to freeze its plans to annex swaths of the West Bank. "While de jure annexation may be suspended, the de facto annexation of settlement expansion is clearly continuing," Peace Now said. The Paleostinians and neighboring Jordan on Wednesday condemned the new approvals. Related: Peace Now: 2020-10-15 1,300 new settlement homes get final approval Peace Now: 2020-06-07 Mattis and Israel – Not a Love Story Peace Now: 2020-01-07 Israel approves the construction of 1,936 new settler homes Posted by: trailing wife 2020-10-16 |
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