Under COVID- 19, settler housing starts drop 50%

The number of settler housing starts dropped by 50% in the second quarter of 2020, which coincided with the period of the COVID- 19 pandemic, bringing the tally to its lowest point in eight years, according to Central Bureau of Statistics data.

It’s a sharper decline than the 29% drop nationwide during the same time period.

Put in real numbers, ground was broken for 316 settler housing units from January to March of this year, compared to 158 starts from April to June.

Together, they represent a 44.4% decline in the number of starts for the first six months of this year, when compared to the first half of last year.

The decline comes as settlers have complained of a de facto freeze in planning for settlement homes.

At issue in particular for the settlers is the fact that the Higher Planning

Council for Judea and Samaria has not met since February.

Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan called on Netanyahu on Tuesday to immediately open up the bottleneck on settler building plans.

“Given that sovereignty has not been applied [ to Judea and Samaria], the nation of Israel expects that a national government would take strong and resonant steps that would strengthen the settlements and prove that a national government has an obligation to the Land of Israel and the settlement of Judea and Samaria,” Dagan said.

Yesha Council CEO Yigal Dilmoni said that the drop was “due to the corona pandemic” and was not tied to the issue of the de facto freeze, the impact of which had not yet been felt on the ground.

The dip in settler housing starts, however, continues a downward trend in actual setter construction that runs contrary to the high number of approvals.

In 2016, during the last year of the Obama administration, there were 3,276 settler housing starts. It was the highest such number since the year 2000, when there were 4,965 housing starts.

The annual number of housing starts under the Trump administration has not hit that same height, with 1,733 starts in 2017, 2,376 starts in 2018 and 1,548 starts in 2019.

But there was also a sharp 166% increase in the number of finished settler homes from the first to second quarter of 2020, according to CBS data published this month. That number varies from the 2.7% increase nationwide.

In specific numbers, there were 246 finished settler homes in the first quarter of 2020, compared to 655 in the second quarter.

When broadening the equation to include the first half of 2020, compared to the first six months of 2019, there was a 4.2% increase in finished homes.