40% of New West Bank Settlement Building Is Beyond Security Barrier
Construction was started on 1,800 new housing units in Jewish settlements in 2015, with some 40 percent outside of the security fence, according to a new report.
Included in the housing starts are 1,547 permanent structures and 253 mobile units, Peace Now said in a report released Sunday. Sixty-three of the buildings were public structures, including synagogues, kindergartens and community centers, and 42 were industrial or agricultural structures.
Fifteen percent of the housing starts, or 265 housing units, were in illegal outposts, according to Peace Now.
In addition, according to the report, 32 housing units were built on private Palestinian land, almost all of them in illegal outposts. A new illegal outpost also was established, Peace Now reported, located south of the Nofei Prat settlement, located near Maale Adumim.
Meanwhile, despite a declared freeze on tenders for new housing construction, tenders for some 1,143 housing units were published in 2015, 560 in the West Bank and 583 in East Jerusalem, according to the report
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO