JERUSALEM, (Reuters) – Israel approved Thursday the construction of 4,427 homes on its West Bank settlements where Palestinians are seeking statehood. This was according to a U.S. watchdog group.

Peace Now (an anti-settlement organization) provided the number following a meeting by Israel’s Higher Planning Council. The council convened in order to ratify construction. The watchdog reported that 2,791 houses received the final approval, while 1,636 homes got an initial nod.

Although there was no official statement from the government, Ayelet Schaked (NYSE:), a nationalist Israeli interior minister responded on Twitter to Peace Now’s count. He called it “a celebratory day for settlement of Judea, Samaria”, a biblical name for the West Bank.

Shaked revealed last week that he would approve the construction of new houses. In response, the Biden administration expressed its opposition.

When asked about Thursday’s housing council decision, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy referred Reuters at remarks that Shaked made last week by the State Department.

“Israel’s program of expanding settlements deeply damages the prospect for a two-state solution,” the State Department said on Friday, referring to a vision of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In 2014, talks about this goal were rescheduled.

Bassam al-Salhe of the Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization called on Palestinians to “step forward their struggle in face of these settlement plans” in Ramallah, West Bank.

He called for the international community to take preventive action against Israel in order to force it to end settlements and aggression against the Palestinians.

The majority of world powers regard Israel’s settlements, which are on territory it took in the 1967 war, as illegal. Israel contests this claim, citing security reasons and Biblical, Historical, and Political connections to the territory.

Construction of homes to expand 22 of Israel’s 132 state-backed settlements on the West Bank was not scheduled for completion until then.