Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that the Higher Planning Council will approve the construction of 1,973 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank during its next session.
He did not specify when the council will meet, Israeli Channel 12 reported.
The announcement came a day after Israel approved the building of 1,300 settler homes in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of occupied East Jerusalem.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that the Higher Planning Council will approve the construction of 1,973 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank during its next session.
Smotrich said Israeli authorities have approved nearly 30,000 new settlement units in the occupied West Bank this year, describing it as an "unprecedented achievement" for his government.
The Palestinian group Hamas denounced the Israeli move as a "dangerous escalation in the policy of Judaisation and settlement expansion targeting Palestinian land deep inside the West Bank."
"These settlement plans constitute a blatant violation of international law and United Nations resolutions that criminalise settlement construction," it said in a statement.
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