The Higher Planning Council is scheduled to meet on Wednesday (July 16, 2025) to advance plans for 567 housing units in two settlements: Beitar Illit and Giv’at Ze’ev. The council will also hold a repeat discussion on a plan for 464 housing units in the Talmon settlement (Plan 235/9/2).
The plan for Beitar Illit (Plan 426/1/1/3/10/2) was approved for deposit only in January this year (January 15, 2025), and is now being brought for final approval within six months of that deposit.
The Talmon plan concerns the “neighborhood” of Harsha, which is in fact an outpost that was retroactively authorized as a neighborhood of Talmon, though it functions as a separate settlement. The plan was first discussed for deposit in April of this year (April 23, 2025), and a second discussion is scheduled for July 16, 2025, due to planning difficulties.
Since November 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 20,214 housing units. All time record.
Settlement Plans Overview
| Settlement | Plan Number | Plan Status | Number of Units |
| Talmon | 235/9/2 | Deposit – repeat discussion | 464* |
| Beitar Illit | 2/ 10/ 3/ 1/ 1/ 426 | Validation | 372 |
| Givat Zeev | 32/ 10/ 220 | Validation | 195 |
| 567 |
*Since this is a repeat discussion, the plan is not included in the overall HU count
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.