While some of the projects are for settlements near the Green Line, other approved plans are for settlements in the heart of the West Bank.

These include a 56-unit project in Negohot, which passed the first planning stage known as Depot, and a 534-unit project in Shvut Rachel, which passed the final planning stage.

Along with adding thousands of new homes, plans retroactively legalize outposts at Mitzpe Dani and Oz v’Gaon.

The first is a neighborhood in the Ma’aleh Michmash settlement, and the second is a nature reserve and educational center that was built following the abduction and murder of teenage Israelis Gilad Shaer, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel during a terrorist attack in the summer of 2014.

In a celebratory tweet responding to Mitzpe Dani’s approval, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked referred to a “day of celebration.”

MK Mossi Raz, from the coalition’s left-wing Meretz party, denounced the approval of the plans, calling the housing “4,000 steps backward in terms of peace, security, morality and justice.”