Jerusalem - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will approve in the next number of days the construction of 800 new housing units in the Orthodox Jewish community of Beitar Illit, located in the Etzion Bloc to the south of Jerusalem, built on hills that Israel a

The settler population is growing twice as fast as the rest of the country every year, and the ultra-Orthodox community is responsible for approximately half its annual growth, according to Haaretz's analysis of Interior Ministry figures for 2006.