Reports: Israel To Defy US With New Settlements

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10. Israel plans 1,400 more West Bank settlement homes, official says

(Reuters) - Israel plans to build a further 1,400 homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank, and will announce the projects next week after releasing a group of Palestinian prisoners, an Israeli government official said on Friday.

The Palestinians have said any further expansion of Israeli settlements on land they seek for a state could derail U.S.-brokered peace talks that resumed in July after a three-year break.

Israel has been expected to release about two dozen Palestinian prisoners, the third group to be freed since the negotiations restarted, by the middle of next week and to announce a new settlement push of hitherto undisclosed size shortly after.

The official said about 600 homes would be announced in Ramat Shlomo, a settlement of mainly Ultra-Orthodox Jews located in an area of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem in a move unrecognized internationally.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/27/uk-palestinians-israel-idUKBRE9BQ01S20131227