Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Ben Dori/Flash90
Homes under construction in the Israeli community of Elkana in Samaria, Aug. 21, 2019
(JNS) — Israel has advanced plans to build more than 2,300 housing units in Judea and Samaria since Dec. 1, as part of a push by the Settlement Administration, a unit in the Defense Ministry under the authority of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The Settlement Administration has convened every week since early December to approve construction in the region, approving a total of 2,377 units, whereas the body would previously meet once every three to four months on average, Ynet reported on Monday.
During last week’s meeting alone, some 440 housing units in various stages of approval were advanced by the government, according to the report.
The Settlement Administration has eliminated the distinction between meetings of the Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Council — which would approve many units but only convened several times a year — and meetings that were held more frequently but only discussed the approval of a small number of homes.
With the weekly meeting, Israel is expected to approve a record number of new units throughout Judea and Samaria in 2025. Last year, the Civil Administration approved the construction of 12,349 housing units, compared to 9,884 in 2023, according to figures obtained by Ynet.
On June 9, Smotrich told a gathering of Judea and Samaria leaders that the government was working to implement “a completely new enforcement system in the Civil Administration.”
The Civil Administration, which is subordinate to the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories unit, is responsible for approving construction and other civilian bureaucratic matters in Judea and Samaria. Smotrich told the local leaders that significant, irreversible strides had been made toward transferring the management of the Civil Administration to civilian hands.
He said the changes he led are irreversible. “The administration is established. The transfer of legal authority is fixed. “If tomorrow the government falls and I leave, it’s there.
“I’m saying to you that this thing is mega-dramatic,” Smotrich said.
