The Palestinian Foreign Ministry yesterday condemned an Israeli plan to build 20,000 new settlement homes in a major settlement east of Jerusalem.

"The settlement project aims at separating East Jerusalem from its surroundings," the ministry said in a statement, according to Anadolu Agency. It said the settlement building "shuts the door to any plan to achieve peace on the basis of the two-state solution and thwarts any efforts to launch a real peace process." Yesterday morning, Israeli daily Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today) reported that the Ministry of Construction and Housing and the municipality of Ma'aleh Adumim signed an agreement to build some 20,000 housing units in the settlement. The project will be implemented once it is approved by the Israeli government, the newspaper said.

According to Palestinian figures, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers now live on 196 settlements (built with Israeli government approval) and more than 200 settler outposts (built without its approval) across the occupied West Bank.

Settlements are one of the most heated issues in efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, frozen since 2014. The international community regards all Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories to be illegal and a major obstacle to Middle East peace. The area, captured by Israel in 1967, is not sovereign Israeli territory and Palestinians there are not Israeli citizens and do not have the right to vote. Some 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas that are also home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians. Palestinians have long argued that Israeli settlements could deny them a viable and contiguous state.