Israeli Settlement Expansion Continues for Fifth Consecutive Week: Plans to Advance 765 New Housing Units

On Wednesday, January 1, 2025, the Higher Planning Council (HPC) will convene to discuss the approval of a construction plan for 765 housing units in the settlement of Beitar Illit.

Since December 2024, the HPC has been advancing housing construction plans in settlements on a weekly basis.

In December alone, 1,164 housing units were approved. In total, during 2024, plans for the construction of 9,884 housing units were approved.

Peace Now: “On the first day of 2025, the Israeli government demonstrates that the trend of the past two years, during which an unprecedented number of housing units were promoted, is set to continue in 2025. The weekly meetings of the Higher Planning Council reflect the normalization of planning in the settlements, aiming to approve as many housing units as possible while avoiding public and international criticism.”

12-30-24 Israeli settlement Expansion Courtesy PeaceNow

The shift to weekly planning approvals results from policy changes introduced by the Netanyahu-Smotrich government. One key decision, made in June 2023, abolished the requirement for the Defense Minister’s approval at every stage of advancing settlement plans.

Before this decision, all settlement construction plans needed prior approval from the defense minister. In recent years, the defense minister mandated that settlement plans be promoted only about four times a year, resulting in the approval of thousands of housing units in each session.

In recent weeks, a significant change has occurred, with the HPC now convening weekly and approving a few hundred housing units in each meeting. This approach aims to normalize settlement planning and attract less public and international attention and criticism.

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Ray Hanania

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Ray Hanania is an award-winning columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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