Despite the state's formal commitment not to expand West Bank settlements, a government agency has been promoting plans over the past two years to construct thousands of housing units east of the Green Line, Haaretz has learned.
The plans, which have not yet been approved by the government, were drawn up by the Civil Administration, the government agency responsible for nonmilitary matters in the West Bank. Details of the plans appear in the minutes of the agency's environmental subcommittee, which were obtained by the B'Tselem organization under the Freedom of Information Act.
The plans propose the initial construction of 550 apartments in Gva'ot, located near Alon Shvut in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, followed by construction of another 4,450 units at a later stage. At present, Gva'ot is inhabited by 12 families. The neighboring settlement of Bat Ayin, which has about 120 families, is slated to receive another 2,000 apartments, according to the plans.
Rimonim will get another 254 apartments if the plans are approved, and expansion plans are also in the works for Einav and Mevo Dotan. All three of these settlements are east of the separation fence.
Ma'aleh Adumim has included planned construction in the E-1 corridor in its sewage treatment plans. That corridor, which links Ma'aleh Adumim to Jerusalem, is eventually slated to hold some 3,500 apartments.
Nearby Kfar Adumim's sewage treatment plan predicts that the settlement will double its population "in the coming years," to 5,600 inhabitants. And in Eshkolot, the Civil Administration instructed the settlement to draw up a sewage plan adequate for a population five times its current one.
A Civil Administration spokesman said that its "environmental subcommittee does not discuss approval for housing units at all, but deals with the professional aspects of the area's environmental needs, sometimes at the theoretical level."
By Akiva Eldar Haaretz.com
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