Israel’s defense minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Thursday he would seek approval next week for the fast-track construction of some 2,500 new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“The 2,500 new units we’ll approve in the planning committee next week are for immediate construction in 2018,” Lieberman said in a statement, adding he would also seek the committee’s approval for a further 1,400 settlement units for later construction.
“We committed to advancing construction in Judaea and Samaria and we’re keeping our word,” Lieberman said, using the biblical terms for the West Bank.
“In the coming months we will bring forward thousands more units for approval.”
Settlements are one of the most heated issues in efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, frozen since 2014. They are considered illegal under international law and are bitterly opposed by Palestinians.
Palestinians want the West Bank for a future state, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there. An Israeli watchdog group reported earlier this year that settlement construction has surged under the Trump administration.
In a Tuesday appeal to the International Criminal Court, the Palestinian foreign ministry called Israeli settlements “the single most dangerous threat to Palestinian lives and livelihoods”.
While Israel would expect to retain certain settlements in any two-state peace deal, longstanding international consensus has been that their status must be negotiated.
