The Sasson Report is an official Israeli government report published on 8 March 2005 that concluded that Israeli state bodies had been discreetly diverting millions of shekels to build West Bank settlements and outposts that were illegal under Israeli law. The report was commissioned by the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and was headed by the former head of the State Prosecution Criminal Department Talia Sasson. Talia Sasson would later run for the Israeli elections as part of the left wing party Meretz. The report The report detailed how officials in the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Housing and Construction and the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization spent millions of shekels from state budgets to support the unauthorized outposts. The Sasson report called it a "blatant violation of the law" and said "drastic steps" were needed to rectify the situation. It describes secret cooperation between various ministries and official institutions to consolidate "wildcat" outposts, which settlers began erecting more than a decade ago. Sasson added that the problem was ongoing, saying "the process of outpost expansion is profoundly under way." The report states: The housing ministry supplied 400 mobile homes for outposts on private Palestinian land. The defense ministry approved the positioning of trailers to begin new outposts. The education ministry paid for nurseries and their teachers. The energy ministry connected outposts to the electricity grid. Roads to outposts were paid for with taxpayers' money. The report mentioned 150 communities in the West Bank with incomplete or nonexistent permits, but Sasson cautions that this list was not exhaustive, due to the lack of cooperation of some ministries and government offices which, according to her, failed to hand over some important documents. She recommended that the Housing Ministry be stripped of authority over construction of settlements in the West Bank, and that this power be transferred to the cabinet. The Housing Minister at the time of the tabling the report, Isaac Herzog (Labour), said following the release of the report that every expense earmarked for the settlements would subsequently need the approval of the Ministry's director-general. Up until then, the heads of each department at the Ministry had been able to sign off on expenses for various construction and infrastructure matters at the settlements. The settlement expansion initiative was backed by Sharon when he was Foreign Minister under Binyamin Netanyahu. In 1998 Sharon publicly urged settlers to seize hilltops