Advancement of 514 Housing Units in the West Bank

The Higher Planning Council is set to discuss the approval of 514 housing units on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in three settlements: Eli, Elkana, Ariel.

Since early December 2024, the Higher Planning Council has been holding weekly meetings to advance housing projects in the settlements. The shift to a weekly approval process not only normalizes construction in the territories but also accelerates it. Since the beginning of 2025, including the plans slated for approval this week, the council has advanced a total of 16,820 housing units. All time record.

The plan in Ariel is an “evacuation-reconstruction” plan, designed to demolish old houses and build a larger number of housing units in their place. This is apparently the first project to benefit from government assistance under the law that was applied in December 2024 on the settlements (for more information, see here).

Settlement Plans Overview

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.

List of Plans Approved Since January 2025:

List of Plans Approved Since January 2025