The Israeli authorities on Sunday determined to ease and expedite the method for approving new Jewish settlement development within the occupied West Bank amid plans to advance hundreds of recent housing models there.

The coverage change additionally transfers the principle accountability for housing approval from the protection minister, at present Yoav Gallant, to the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right former settlement activist who can be serving as a secondary protection minister and who advocates Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

The determination got here as a senior American official, Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was to reach within the area. Her journey is geared toward, amongst different issues, attempting to broaden Israel’s relations with Arab states — a mission that may seem like difficult by the prospect of extra settlement exercise within the West Bank.

Most international locations think about Jewish settlements within the occupied territories that Israel captured from Jordan within the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 to be in violation of worldwide regulation. The Biden administration, like most earlier American administrations, has repeatedly condemned construction in settlements, contemplating it a supply of elevated tensions with Palestinians and a hindrance to the prospects of any everlasting peace based mostly on the two-state resolution as a result of they undermine the long run institution of an impartial Palestinian state in these territories.

The change agreed to on Sunday is an modification to planning procedures which have been in place since 1996. The modification removes the necessity for high-level political approval at numerous interim phases of the planning course of, making it tougher for the prime minister and protection minister to sluggish or pause new settlement development for diplomatic or safety causes and customarily permitting for accelerated enlargement.

Government officers mentioned that the change would lower pointless crimson tape within the approval course of and that new development would nonetheless be topic to closing authorization by the prime minister.

The altered guidelines specify that the accountability for approvals will probably be transferred to Mr. Smotrich during the present authorities and can apply to any authorities that appoints an extra minister to serve within the Defense Ministry.

The Trump administration reversed decades of American policy in 2019 by declaring that the United States didn’t think about West Bank settlements to be in violation of worldwide regulation. But the Biden administration has referred to as on Israel to rein in construction in the occupied territories, and Palestinians have demanded the land for a future state, a objective that has lengthy been backed by the United Nations, European governments and American allies throughout the Middle East.

The planning change illustrates a steadiness that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is attempting to strike between the calls for of his ultranationalist coalition companions and his stated goal of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia. Though Saudi Arabia is now not demanding the institution of a Palestinian state as a situation for establishing open diplomatic ties with Israel, huge settlement enlargement is unlikely to assist.

Mr. Smotrich commented on the modifications to the planning course of in a post on Twitter. “The construction boom in Judea and Samaria and all over our country continues,” he wrote, referring to the West Bank by biblical names.

“With God’s help, we will continue to expand settlement and strengthen Israel’s hold on the territory,” he added.

Peace Now, an Israeli advocacy group that opposes settlements and tracks their progress, mentioned in an announcement that the Netanyahu authorities was empowering “a dangerous minority driven by messianic ideals” by handing the approval energy to Mr. Smotrich, chief of the hard-right Religious Zionism occasion.

“This decision will inevitably lead to further harmful construction in the settlements, in clear violation of international law,” Peace Now added, saying that the federal government was on a “path toward de facto annexation.”

In response to the Israeli transfer, a prime Palestinian official, Hussein al-Sheikh, mentioned that the Palestinian management had determined to boycott a Monday assembly of the Joint Economic Committee, which regulates financial relations between the 2 sides. He mentioned that the Palestinian management would “examine a number of other measures” to additional protest the planning modification.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jordan additionally condemned the Israeli government’s decision. Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and preserve a strategic relationship.

An Israeli planning committee is scheduled to fulfill on June 26 to debate tasks involving greater than 4,000 new settlement houses at numerous phases of the approval course of. The proposed models are the second tranche of roughly 10,000 new settlement homes that had been promised by the government after it came to power.

Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel.