A ministerial committee voted on Tuesday to establish a bloc of rural communities in the Lachish region in mid-to-southern Israel. The district will include seven eastern Lachish communities, most of them newly established. Some 200 families uprooted from Gush Katif in 2005 will be among the pioneering residents.

According to the decision of the Ministerial Committee on Settlement Affairs, chaired by

Five hundred residential units are planned in the first stage.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, five hundred residential units are planned in the first stage. The new housing will be distributed among seven Lachish-area rural communities - Hazan, Shomriya, Mirsham, Amatzia, Haruv, Keramit and Shekef. The new town of Hazan is expected to become the largest of the seven.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office said that there are five groups that have already expressed a willingness to settle in the region. They will be joined by other families, according to the spokesman, who are interested in becoming involved in tourism enterprises, guest houses and vineyards planned for the area. Currently, Lachish boasts ancient caves, mineral springs and archaeological sites, as well as underdeveloped parks.

The Prime Minister's Office emphasized that development in eastern Lachish will be carried out in such a way as to preserve the local rural character. At the same time, a new road connecting Lachish to the southern cities of Be'er Sheva and Kiryat Gat is slated to be built. The project, which is to get underway immediately, will cost a total of NIS 200 million.

The government decision indicates that boosting settlement in the Lacish region is an important national interest, according to officials, which justifies the needed budgetary allocations.

However, plans for the Lachish development had been on the drawing board for at least ten months prior to a meeting between the Prime Minister's Office and some of the Gush Katif refugees in January of this year, during which final approval was secured. Little has been accomplished since that time. Officials said several months ago that they were working to design houses that will be appropriate for the surrounding natural conditions.

Prime Minister Olmert said that he welcomed Tuesday's decision. "The time has come to

Plans for the Lachish development had been on the drawing board for at least ten months.

 stop talking and start doing," he said. "If developing a new community in Israel is genuinely exciting, how much more so the development of seven communities that will turn a thinly settled region into a genuine national and tourist treasure. This is settlement inside the Green Line, which is very significant. Approximately 100 families live in the region today while Palestinian settlement increases beyond the Green Line. This region has great potential and we are interested in it becoming one of Zionism's major developments in the 21st century. I foresee thousands of families in the area.... This region will be based on agriculture, tourism and local industry."

The Prime Minister's Office Director General Ra'anan Dinur, who chaired the directors-general team that formulated the plan to strengthen the eastern Lachish region, said: "We want to create strong settlement groups. This is one of the most prestigious areas in the country that the state can offer its residents. It has a rural character and is accessible to the center of the country."