WEST BANK (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime has approved the construction of 285 new settler units in the occupied West Bank in defiance of international calls to end the illegal project in the Palestinian territories.
The Tel Aviv regime approved the building of 234 settler units in the illegal settlement of Elkana, 31 in Beit Aryeh, and 20 others in Givat Ze'ev, Israel’s Haarez daily reported on Wednesday.
The regime also retroactively legalized some 178 housing units already built in the illegal Beit Aryeh settlement.
The Zionist regime "continues to plan and build all over the West Bank, while also giving settlers the message that any construction done without planning will be retroactively legalized,” settlement watchdog Peace Now said.
Earlier this month, Tel Aviv also approved plans to construct 56 new housing units in the neighborhood of Ramot in East al-Quds.
Over half a million Zionists live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Zionist occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.
The regime continues to expand illegal settlement units in the occupied West bank despite international calls for the unauthorized activity to be halted.
In a report to the U.N. Security Council in New York on Monday, U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov talked about a "surge” in Zionist plans to advance 1,700 new settler units in the Palestinians lands.
Mladenov accused the occupying regime of stepping up demolitions of Palestinian buildings, and plans to identify grounds for a new settlement next to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
The U.N. envoy also noted that expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine hinder efforts aimed at establishing peace in the Middle East.  
All Zionist settlements are illegal under international law but Tel Aviv continues to defy calls to stop the settlement expansions in the occupied Palestinian territories.