ISRAEL’S far-right government has approved plans to build over 5,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Monday’s move threatens to heighten tensions with Palestinians residents, who have seen an increase in violent settler attacks in recent days.

The decision came in the face of growing United States criticism of Israel’s settlement policies.

Multiple Israeli media outlets reported that the Defence Ministry planning committee approved 5,700 new settlement homes. 

The units are at various stages of planning, and it was not immediately clear when construction would begin.

The Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the defence body in charge of the planning committee, did not respond to requests for comment.

Over 700,000 Israelis now live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which were captured by Israel in 1967.

Settlement construction is illegal under international law, has been widely condemned by the international community and is considered a huge obstacle to peace. 

Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, said Israel has now approved over 13,000 settlement housing units this year. That is nearly three times the number of homes approved in 2022 and marks the most approvals in any year since it began systematically tracking planning procedures in 2012.

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultra-right-wing settler leader, has been granted cabinet-level authority over settlement policies and has vowed to double the settler population in the West Bank.

Even the US, which habitually backs Tel Aviv to the hilt, has been increasingly outspoken in its criticism of Israel’s settlement policies.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the settlements “an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek.”