The Higher Planning Council will convene on Wednesday, March 12, 2025, to discuss the approval of 1,439 housing units in the West Bank.
Among these, are two major plans in the settlement of Talmon (968 housing units) and the settlement of Yakir (464 housing units).
Since early December 2024, the Higher Planning Council has been holding weekly meetings to advance housing units in settlements. The upcoming discussion to advance 1,439 housing units represents a record number to be approved since the transition to weekly meetings. In fact, in recent weeks we have observed a weekly increase in the number of approved units. For example, on February 26, 2025, 1,170 housing units were approved; on March 5, 2025, 1,408 units; and on March 12, 2025, 1,439 units are expected to be approved.
The plan to build 968 housing units in Talmon involves the construction of a new neighborhood extending westward from the satellite settlement of Neriah. On March 5, 2025, the committee approved for deposit a plan for 460 housing units in the Talmon/Zayit Ra’anan settlement. Neriah and Zayit Ra’anan are satellite settlements of Talmon. Together, these two plans add 1,428 housing units to a single settlement.
| Settlement | Plan Status | Plan Number | Housing Units |
| Givat Zeev | Validation | 215/2/37 | 1 |
| Givat Zeev | Validation | 215/2/40 | 1 |
| Talmon | Deposit | 235/13/2 | 968 |
| Etz Efraim | Deposit | 126/18 | 1 |
| Share Tikva | Deposit | 122/24 | 2 |
| Yakir | Deposit | 118/1/2 | 464 |
| Barkan | Deposit | 128/11 | 2 |
| 1,439 |
The shift to approving plans on a weekly basis not only normalizes construction in these areas but also accelerates it. For instance, with the plans set for discussion on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, the total number of units promoted since the beginning of 2025 will reach 8,956 HU for three months.
One of the changes made by the Netanyahu-Smotrich government in June 2023 was the elimination of the need for defense minister approval for each stage of settlement plan advancement. Previously, every construction plan in settlements required prior approval from the defense minister. In recent years, the defense minister had limited settlement plan advancements to approximately four times a year, with thousands of housing units being approved in a single session of the Higher Planning Council. In recent weeks, we have witnessed a change where the Higher Planning Council meets every week and approves several hundred housing units in each meeting. In this way, the government seeks to normalize planning in settlements and attract less public and international attention and criticism.