Defense Minister Ehud Barak will retroactively approve illegal construction by Arabs in ten neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria. Some of the neighborhoods had a municipal building plan that had not been approved by Israeli authorities and others had no building plan at all.
The neighborhoods are located in areas designated as "C" regions in the Oslo accords, and are under Israeli military and administrative control. One of them is located between Har Homa and Herodion, not far from the former Shdema base.
The approvals are part of Israel's "gestures" toward the Fatah/Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria and were coordinated with Quartet representative Tony Blair.