Israel uses the so-called natural growth term to expand and build more settlements in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli rights group said on Wednesday.

The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights (B'Tselem) said that the number of Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territory has reached 289,600, making a 37 percent increase in six years since Israel accepted the US-backed Road Map peace plan which stipulates settlement's freezing.

Israel has often said it couldn't stop the natural growth of the housing blocs, but Israel uses that term "to cover the big expansion of the settlements," B'Tselem said in a statement released today.

The settlements have already taken 1.7 percent of the West Bank land and the Israeli future construction plans indicate that another 6.8 percent will be seized, according to the report.

Israel refuses to stop the building of settlements and resorts to fragile justifications "such as fears of family divisions among the settlers" to continue the expansions, B'Tselem said.

The settlement activities were the key reason for obstructing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). For the Palestinians, the settlement communities occupied the land of their future statehood which would be established in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Israeli premier, has been rejecting US calls to freeze the settlement activities since he took office in early April, making ties between his state and Washington unprecedented flagging.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2009)