Date :5 Jul 2010
Israeli settlements across the West Bank are set to expand by up to 2,700 housing units when Israel's temporary partial moratorium on building expires on 27 September, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz revealed Monday.

According to the daily, the units were authorized before the partial construction freeze was enforced, but several settlement networks are reportedly preparing for further expansion.

Gershon Mesika, council head of a northern West Bank settlement network in the Nablus governorate, called on planners to prepare to "grant building permits, to wrap up project planning and to transfer them to the engineering department for inspection," Haaretz reported.

"Time is short and there is much to be done," Mesika wrote in a letter obtained by the daily. "We want to welcome September prepared for final committee permits in order to immediately issue those permits as soon as the [freeze] period lapses, and to allow the commencement of construction."

Council deputy Ehud Stondia told Haaretz that the settlement network was "preparing for construction on the scale that existed before the freeze or even more."