ISRAEL will build another 3,900 houses in illegal settlements in the West Bank, Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said today.

Mr Lieberman said he would be seeking approval next week for fast-track construction of 2,500 more homes for Israeli citizens on occupied Palestinian land, including a number of remote outposts and an expansion of the settler enclave in the city of Hebron.

A further 1,400 units currently in the preliminary planning stage would be “advanced,” the minister, leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, declared.

Mr Lieberman was among those who congratulated the Israeli army on its slaughter of scores of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators since March, bragging after 15 Palestinians were shot dead over the Jewish festival of Passover that “the festival passed quietly — no soldiers were hurt.”

After the announcement Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned the mayor of the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement near Jerusalem to congratulate him on the 460 new houses planned there, saying: “This is another step to developing the settlements and we will approve new units in the near future.”

Israeli NGO Peace Now said the plans were “a scandal” and the project of a “messianic right-wing government.”

Israel’s colonisation of occupied land is a war crime and formally opposed by all other countries, although in practice it is winked at by the United States and European Union.

The transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the eastern part of which is seen as the only viable site for a future Palestinian capital, has emboldened Israel to accelerate its settlement programme, which has already provided 600,000 Israelis with homes in Palestinian territory.