Surge in West Bank construction expected

JERUSALEM— In a rare step, Israel approved plans late Tuesday to build 715 housing units for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, though the government is soon expected to endorse 6,800 units for Jewish settlers there, too.

About 3,700 settler housing units have already been approved this year, and the addition of 6,800 would push 2019 past the record for approvals in a single year. The news comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is campaigning for support from right-wing voters, including settlers, less than six weeks before a parliamentary election.

With Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s sonin-law and senior adviser, visiting the region to lay more groundwork for the administration’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the approval of Palestinian housing is seen in Israel as a gesture that will please the Americans.

But it did nothing to placate the Palestinian leadership, which has already rejected any U.S. peace plan, arguing that the Trump team is hopelessly biased toward Israel. The Palestinians and much of the rest of the world consider the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, home to more than 400,000 people, to be illegal and a barrier to any peace settlement.

The true scale of the approvals was unclear because some of them may be retroactive, authorizing homes that had already been constructed without permits.