The decision by Israel to build 1,100 more settlement homes in the West Bank was criticised by the United States who said it was "deeply disappointed" and the European Union which said the plan “undermines the talks with Palestinians and should be reversed."
The new homes are set to be built in Gilo on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Last week Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN General Assembly as part of a move to gain statehood for Palestine. In his speech he said settlement activity embodied the "colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestine people."
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu defended the construction project in an interview with the Jerusalem Post. “We plan in Jerusalem. We build in Jerusalem. Period. The same way Israeli governments have been doing for 44 years, since the end of the 1967 war,” he said.