This is the best summary I could come up with:

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who oversees the Civil Administration, said following the meeting that a total of 18,515 homes in West Bank settlements had now been approved over the past year.

Mr Smotrich put forward the plans on 22 February, hours after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on cars on a road near Maale Adumim, killing one Israeli and wounding several others.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed disappointment with the decision the following day and surprised many observers by declaring that the US viewed settlements as illegal - reverting to a position that had been overturned by former President Donald Trump’s administration in 2019.

“It’s been longstanding US policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace,” he told reporters in Argentina.

A Peace Now report said in January that there had been an “unprecedented surge in settlement activities” across the West Bank since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel on 7 October.

The UN says at least 413 Palestinians - members of armed groups, attackers and civilians - have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, or in Israel since October.

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