Illegal Settlement Expansion-Settlement Watch Team – March 2009 PEACE NOW ,ISRAEL

The Ministry of Construction and Housing is planning to construct at least

73,300 housing units in the West Bank

An examination of the data available on the Israeli government Website

(http://www.govmap.gov.il/) that contains maps and information from the

Ministry of Housing, reveals that in plans for the West Bank at least

15,000 housing units have already been approved, and plans for an

additional 58,000 housing units are yet to be approved.

.This Peace Now report is based on this data published on the official

government website.

However the plans published are only a small part of the overall housing

plans for the Occupied Territories, there are other thousands of housing

units in plans of the local authorities, private initiators and other

public authorities, all of which we are in the process of collating.

Main findings:

• Total number of housing units in the published plans – 73,302, out of

which, 5,722 are in East Jerusalem

• Total number of housing units in approved plans – 15,156, approx. 8,950

of which have already been built.

• Total number of housing units in planning stages – 58,146.

• If all the plans are realized, the number of settlers in the Territories

will be doubled (an addition of approx. 300,000 persons, based upon an

average of 4 persons in each housing unit).

• In Gush Etzion (Bethlehem area) 17,000 housing units are planned in

areas outside the existing settlements.

• At least six (6) outposts are included in the Ministry of Housing plans

(Magen Dan, Givat Hadagan, Givat Hatamar, Bnei Adam, Bat Ayin West, Hill

26).

• There are plans for huge construction to double the size of some

settlements, including: Beitar Illit, Ariel, Givat Ze’ev, Maaleh Adumim,

Efrat and Geva Binyamin.

• Approx. 19,000 housing units are planned in settlements that are beyond

the constructed path of the Fence (Kiryat Arba, Karnei Shomron, Ariel,

Geva Binyamin, Immanuel, Revava).

• The plans in the settlements constitute 22% of the total housing units

that are in planning stages in the Ministry of Housing.