Israel approves 1,500 new West Bank settlement units

JERUSALEM (AA) - The Israeli authorities late Wednesday approved construction of hundreds of new settlement units in the West Bank, Israeli media has reported.

According to the Walla news website, Israel’s Supreme Planning Council on Wednesday approved the construction of 1,500 new housing units throughout the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It went on to report that 1,000 of the new housing units would be built in the Tana, Omrim, Carmel, Ali Zahav, Tzofim, Talmon, Neve Daniel and Kiryat Araba settlements.

The remaining 500, the website added, would be built “throughout Judea and Samaria” -- a Jewish term for the occupied West Bank.

Roughly 600,000 Israelis currently live on more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Israel occupied the territories in 1967.

The Palestinians, for their part, want these areas -- along with the Gaza Strip -- for a future state of Palestine.

International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity on the land as illegal.