The channel said the decision came less than a week after US President Donald Trump's statement against Israeli construction in the West Bank.
On October 24, the US president told reporters at the White House that they "should not worry about the West Bank" and that "Israel will not do anything in the West Bank."
Channel 14 explained: "This plan (to build 1,300 units) is unprecedented in its scale in the region, and is scheduled to be implemented in the Ha'ar Harusi (Russian Mountain) neighborhood located south of the Alon Shvut settlement," southwest of occupied Jerusalem.
She continued: "In addition to residential units, the plan will also include schools, public buildings, and parks. A large commercial area will also be built near the settlement, and is expected to serve all the neighboring settlements." The Gush Etzion Regional Council welcomed the approval of the plan, saying in a statement that it constitutes "an appropriate response to the large number of residents who wish to live in the area."
The settlement council added that "this plan is the largest construction plan that has been approved in the history of Gush Etzion," according to the same source.
In a related context, a local Palestinian official revealed on Wednesday that Israeli settlers had uprooted hundreds of ancient olive trees near the village of Qaryut, south of the city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
Youssef Sadiq Al-Hajj Muhammad, acting head of the Qaryut Local Council, told Anadolu that Palestinians were surprised when they were allowed to access their lands to pick olives, only to find that hundreds of them had been uprooted on the western side of the village.
He added that "the relevant Palestinian authorities coordinated with the Israeli side to allow about 30 farmers to access their lands near the settlement of (Eli) between 7:30 am (4:30 GMT) and 4:30 pm (13:30 GMT) this evening."
He added, "Upon their arrival, they were shocked to find hundreds of trees uprooted. It is estimated that settlers had cut them down three weeks prior." He continued, saying that what happened to the farmers was "a repeat of what happened last year, when they lost about 1,700 trees uprooted by settlers in the same area."
According to data from the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, the Israeli army and settlers carried out "a total of 259 attacks on olive pickers in the West Bank, since the start of the campaign in the first week of October until Tuesday," noting that settlers carried out 218 of them.
The agency added that the attacks ranged "from violent physical assault, arrest campaigns, restrictions on movement, denial of access, intimidation and terror in all its forms, and shootings."
These attacks are part of a broad Israeli escalation in the West Bank by the army and settlers during the two years of genocide in Gaza, which resulted in the killing of 1,062 Palestinians and the injury of about 10,000 others, in addition to the arrest of more than 20,000 people, including 1,600 children.
On October 10, a ceasefire agreement, according to the plan of US President Donald Trump, ended a two-year Israeli war of genocide on Gaza, supported by Washington, which left 68,643 Palestinian martyrs and 170,655 wounded, most of them children and women, with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at about $70 billion.
