Israel to build 6,000 settlement homes in West Bank

Israel's security cabinet has approved a plan to build 6,000 settlement homes in Area C of the occupied West Bank, according to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Wednesday.

All cabinet members voted in favor of the plan proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting Tuesday night.

The meeting also approved the construction of some 700 housing units for Palestinians living in Area C, which is under Israel's civil and security control, the newspaper said.

According to the daily, Netanyahu's insistence to include housing units for Palestinians appears to have stemmed from the pressure being applied on his government by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) decried the new settlement building as "illegal".

"It is the right of the Palestinian people to build on all of its occupied territories in 1967 without the need for permission from anyone," PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency.

"We will not give any legitimacy to the construction of any settlement stone on our Palestinian land," he said.

Under the 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and PA, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was divided into Areas A, B and C.

Israel prevents Palestinians from carrying out construction projects in parts of the West Bank designated as Area C under the agreement which falls under the administrative and security control of Israel.

Area C is currently home to around 300,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are Bedouins and herding communities who predominantly live in tents, caravans and caves.

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