Giv'at Ze'ev () is an urban Israeli settlement in the West Bank, five kilometers northwest of Jerusalem. The settlement was founded in 1977 on the site of the abandoned Jordanian military camp, adjacent to the site of ancient Gibeon. While it lies within the borders of the Matte Binyamin Regional Council, it is a separate municipal entity. In it had a population of . The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. Description According to the Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem, Israel has confiscated land from three nearby Palestinian villages in order to construct Giv'at Ze'ev: 2,246 dunams from Al Jib, 30 dunams from Beit Duqqu, 9 dunums from Beit Ijza, 1,036 dunams from Beitunia, for Giv'at Ze'ev and Beit Horon. It was named after Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and declared a local council in 1983. Palestinians contend that under the expropriation maps contained in military orders, the road connecting it to Jerusalem, though ostensibly designed to "facilitate Palestinian movement", actually would confiscate 15 square kilometers of prime agricultural land, on which the livelihoods of 24,000 Palestinians depend in order to enable the programmed development of this settlement bloc. In 1996 a program of expansion with new housing units and an envisaged 20,000 new settlers was approved, to be constructed on land confiscated from the Palestinian villages of Beitunia, Biddu, and Jib, in what Palestinians call Wadi Salman, but which the Israelis have renamed Ha'ayalot valley. Twice in successive years further areas amounting to 250 acres were confiscated from Beitunia and Jib to build an additional 11,550 units. On March 9, 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the construction of 750 new homes in Giv'at Ze'ev under the Agan Ha'ayalot project. This approval stands in contrast to Olmert's policy of freezing new permits for expansion within existing settlements. Olmert argued that the project was first approved in 1999, but stopped in 2000, as a result of the Second Intifada. The approval was criticized by the Palestinian Authority, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the European Union. On the political right, the Shas party took credit for pressuring Olmert to approve the project. Both the Ayelet HaShahar synagogue and yeshiva built on private Palestinian land owned by the Allatif family of the nearby Palestinian township of Jib, are slated to be demolished by March 2014, after the prosecutor's office determined that the