Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he hopes to see 2,500 new settlements approved and that construction will begin this year. Lieberman said Israel will build more settlements from the North to the South of the West Bank, and he will ask Israel’s policy committee to approve the construction of more than 1,400 additional settlements.

The construction of settlements is a major obstacle to resuming Israel-Palestine negotiations, which have been frozen since 2014.