Israeli District Planning and Building Committee in Jerusalem approved on Tuesday the construction of 640 new settlement units in the illegal settlement of Ramat Shlomo, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The illegal settlement of Ramat Shlomo is located between the Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Beit Hanina and Shuafat.

According to the newspaper, the committee rejected appeals by anti-settlement group Ir Amim, which argued the new settler units would be built on privately owned Palestinian land.

The NGO described the committee’s decision as a “step that violates the property rights of Palestinian landowners through and through.”

It also said: “This decision is additional proof that Israeli control in East Jerusalem means a regime based on serious discrimination.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry slammed the approval and said the plan which allows Israel “to swallow the West Bank and undermine any international effort to achieve peace based on the two-state solution”.

Read: Israel approves building 20,000 settlement units in West Bank