Ramallah, December 16 (RHC)-- Israel has reportedly approved construction of at least 8,300 settler units in the occupied West Bank through a 20-year project that practically enables annexation of the Palestinian land on which the structures are to be built.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency carried the report, citing information announced earlier by the Arab48 news website.  The project would get off the ground next year and last until 2040 involving industrial, commercial and residential facilities, including towers running as high as 30 stories, in areas lying south of the occupied city of Jerusalem al-Quds.

Wafa said the facilities were to rear their heads on “seized Palestinian land extending from Beit Safafa neighborhood to al-Walaja village.”  Israel occupied the West Bank during a war in 1967 and has, ever since, been dotting the Palestinian territory with illegal settlements.

Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump said he agreed with the regime’s “annexing” the areas on which the settlements have been built.  Tel Aviv, though, supposedly shelved the annexation plan amid international outcry.

According to the National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements (NBPRS) of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) umbrella group, however, such ambitious building projects, in effect, realize the regime’s annexation purposes.

The Israeli regime has just allegedly frozen the annexation march in a gesture aimed “to deceive the public opinion and the international community.”