JERUSALEM 

Israeli authorities are planning to build thousands of more settlement units across the occupied West Bank, expanding illegal housing units there, local media reported on Wednesday.

Israeli public broadcaster KAN said that Israel's "Supreme Planning Committee will convene today (Wednesday) and Thursday to approve the construction of 5,300 settlement units" in the West Bank.

KAN also quoted Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also has supervision over Israeli settlement activity in occupied Palestinian lands, as saying that Israel is developing settlements in order to head off the possibility of a Palestinian state.

Last week, the Israeli Cabinet approved steps proposed by Smotrich aimed at "legalizing" five settlement outposts in the West Bank.

Smotrich also vowed to make a future Palestinian state out of the question by creating complicating facts on the ground and applying what he called Israel's “sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank.

Despite continued international criticism of Israel’s building settlements on Palestinian lands, the Israeli government took several steps in recent months to accelerate settlement activity across the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Under international law, all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar in Ankara