Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the marketing of land for the construction of 454 homes in two settlements in East Jerusalem, a government official said yesterday

The building of 436 of the housing units, in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war, was approved in 2012.

But the project was later frozen in an apparent attempt to avoid friction with Washington.

US Vice President Joe Biden publicly scolded Israel when construction plans for Ramat Shlomo, which is in territory Palestinians seek for a future state, were first announced in 2010 while he was visiting Jerusalem.

The government official, who asked not to be identified, said Mr Netanyahu gave the go-ahead on Monday to market 436 homes in Ramat Shlomo and another 18 in Ramot. In a statement, the Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli plan and settlement-building as a whole as a “flagrant violation of international law” aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Ramat Shlomo and Ramot are in a part of the West Bank that Israel annexed to Jerusalem in 1967 in a move that has not won international recognition.

Mr Netanyahu has said that Jews have a right to live in any part of Jerusalem. Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem among 2.4 million Palestinians.