The community of Beit El in Samaria. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – By the end of 2017, some 12,000 new Israeli settlement homes will have been approved at various stages of the planning and construction process, a senior political official in Jerusalem told Israel Hayom this week in response to criticism about sluggish approvals for new housing starts in Judea and Samaria.

The official pointed out that this number is four times larger than the amount of new settlement housing units approved in 2016.

“Anyone who thinks there is no need to take political considerations into account is making a big mistake,” the official said. “There is no one who works on behalf of the settlements with more wisdom and determination than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The Jerusalem official went on to say that in accordance with the agenda published by the Judea and Samaria Planning Council, various stages of planning and construction would be approved for 3,736 new housing units. The total number of housing units in the final planning stages stands at 1,200. According to the official, the units approved for discussion are located throughout Judea and Samaria, including in Hebron and Beit El, where no new housing starts have been approved since 2002, and where Jewish residents were promised new housing in place of the evacuated Draynoff homes in the Ulpana neighborhood.