Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has given the green light for the construction of several hundred new homes in the West Bank, reported Army Radio on Tuesday.

The housing project is located in the Talmon settlement near the West Bank city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian National Authority, said the report, adding that Barak has approved plans to build 240 homes in addition to the 60 units that have already been erected.

Meanwhile, some activist groups argued that the building site amounts to an unauthorized settlement outpost, a sort of wildcat structure that the Israeli government has promised to dismantle.

Israel's Defense Ministry has made no public response to the report.

Israel's settlement activity, to which the international community, including Israel's most important ally the United States, has long called for a stop, is widely regarded as an obstacle to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Some 300,000 Jews are now living in some 120 settlements in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory captured by Israel in 1967 together with east Jerusalem.

The Israeli government has insisted that the Jewish state retain certain major settlement blocs under any final peace deal with the Palestinians.

(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2009)