©ohchr
Israeli authorities issued less than 66 building permits to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank over an 11-year span, a stark contrast to the tens of thousands of approvals given to Israeli settlers during the same period, according to reporting by Haaretz cited in The New Arab.
Between roughly 2009 and 2020, Israeli civil authorities granted over 22,000 permits to Israeli settlers in settlements and outposts.
Most Palestinian construction requests are submitted in Area C, the roughly 60 percent of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli civil and military control. Palestinians must apply through the Israeli Civil Administration to build homes, schools, water networks, or even agricultural structures.
Approval is exceedingly rare.
When permits are denied, families often build anyway out of necessity. The alternative is overcrowding, displacement, or leaving their communities altogether. But building without a permit carries serious consequences: demolition orders, fines, and forced evictions.
Human rights groups have long argued that this system creates a coercive environment. According to Amnesty International and other advocacy organizations, restrictive planning policies systematically limit Palestinian development while facilitating settlement expansion.
Record Settlement Growth
While Palestinian applications stall, settlement construction has accelerated.
Reporting by Haaretz has documented what it described as the highest number of settlement housing approvals in years, with thousands of new units advanced in a single planning cycle. The paper noted that recent approval rounds marked record levels, reinforcing a steady upward trend in settlement growth.
Settlement expansion includes not only housing units but also infrastructure, roads, and retroactive legalization of outposts previously considered unauthorized even under Israeli law.
The contrast is stark. In more than a decade, Palestinian approvals amounted to fewer than six permits per year on average. In some settlement approval rounds, more than that number is approved in a single day.
The near-total freeze on Palestinian permits feeds directly into demolitions. Structures built without authorization are frequently targeted. Entire communities face repeated demolition orders. Schools built with international funding have been torn down. Animal shelters, solar panels, and water cisterns have been confiscated or destroyed.
By severely restricting Palestinian construction while expanding settlements, the planning regime reshapes geography and demographics on the ground.
©TNPP
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