Israel to advance plans for 2,000 new illegal settlement units

Israel’s civil administration, also known as COGAT -- which is responsible for carrying out numerous Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian territory -- is expected to advance plans within the next few weeks for up to 2,000 new illegal settlement units in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli news daily Haaretz.

Haaretz released the report on Sunday, citing an anonymous Israeli government official who reportedly said that the plans in question could be advanced as early as next week.

Most of the plans, Haaretz noted, “will simply be moving onto another stage of the planning process,” though a few tenders for immediate construction are also slated for approval. Haaretz added that according to the government official, if the plans are not advanced by next week, they will be right after the Jewish holiday of Sukkot holiday ends on October 11.

One of the few plans expected to receive final approval is a plan for the construction of an additional 300 settler homes in the in Beit El settlement in the central West Bank district of Ramallah. Haaretz noted that the Israeli government had promised the additional units to settler leaders more than five years ago “following the demolition of illegally built homes in the settlement.”

According to Haaretz, the Civil Administration’s Supreme Planning Committee postponed a recent meeting at the request of the US president Donald Trump’s office.

“The goal of these postponements was to make sure the committee’s meeting didn’t clash with the UN General Assembly or the various diplomatic meetings that surrounded it,” Haaretz said, noting that the committee’s agenda was supposed to be published a day before Trump met in New York with Palestinian Authority Head Mahmoud Abbas.

“The senior official said the White House asked the (Israeli) Prime Minister’s Office to postpone publication of the agenda so it wouldn’t sabotage the Trump-Abbas meeting, and the PMO agreed.”

The agenda, according to Haaretz, is now set to be published on Tuesday.