Tel Aviv, May 9 (RHC)-- Israel has approved the construction of 900 new illegal settler units in East Jerusalem, despite mounting international criticism of its expansionist policies. An Israeli activist group known as Peace Now said that the city's district planning committee has given the go-ahead for the new housing units to be built in Ramat Shlomo settlement.

The Israeli Interior Ministry had already announced a plan to build hundreds of settler homes in the same ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem. However, construction was delayed because the planning committee said new roads need to be built first. The latest approval comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has finally managed to form his ruling coalition before a deadline for the formation of new government. He has announced a deal with the Jewish Home (Bayit Yehudi), a Zionist pro-settlement party.

International criticism is growing against Israel's settlement activities. The international community regards all Israeli settlements built on the occupied Palestinian land as illegal.

Meanwhile, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has stepped up its efforts against the Israeli expansionist policies. BDS is an international anti-Israeli campaign aimed at exerting pressure on Tel Aviv for its "occupation and colonization" of the Arab lands. In its website, the BDS movement demands that the Israelis respect the Palestinians' inalienable right to their homeland, and allow Palestinians who have fled Palestine to other countries to return to their homes.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. Israel occupied and then annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967, but the move has never been recognized by the international community.

Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip and are demanding that Israel withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.