An Interior Ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak about the issue, characterized the publication of the ministry’s final approval of the Gilo units as “just a procedure.” In addition, the Housing Ministry and the Israel Lands Administration must still evaluate construction tenders for the Gilo housing, and groundbreaking could be months or more away.

But the timing of the news inflamed Palestinian passions.

Arrangements for the peace talks have been a preoccupation of Secretary of State John Kerry, who has sought to persuade Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president, that continued Israeli housing development in areas occupied by Israel after the 1967 war should not be a deal breaker.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, an aide to Mr. Abbas, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying the news of Israeli housing expansion in areas occupied or annexed by Israel “threatens to make talks fail even before they’ve started.” Other critics said the housing expansion reflected what they regarded as Israeli intransigence on a fundamental issue.

“Israel continues illegal construction in settlements throughout the occupied West Bank in all the major settlement blocs and has attempted to justify this by saying they intend to keep all those settlement blocs in any agreement anyway,” said Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development, a Palestinian advocacy group in Washington. “If Israel has already decided what the map is going to look like, what is the point of negotiating over territory?”

The Gilo news came as Israel was releasing a group of long-held Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal to restart the talks, which have basically been stalled for three years over the issue of Israeli settlements and their impact on the viability of a future Palestinian state.

Mr. Kerry, who was traveling in Brazil, said he called Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday and discussed the settlement issue. He said that Mr. Netanyahu had been “completely upfront with me and with President Abbas that he would be announcing some additional building that would take place in places that will not affect the peace map.”

“He has specifically agreed not to disturb what might be the potential for peace going forward,” Mr. Kerry added, saying he planned to call Mr. Abbas later.