Colony housing starts by the Israelis regime in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have jumped by more than 130 per cent to more than 2,100 apartments in the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2012, according to regime figures.

Since March, the government has promoted plans for more than 11,000 additional colony apartments, the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said.

The number of Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is approaching 600,000, compared to about 2.5 million Palestinians in those territories.

The Palestinians claim both areas and the Gaza Strip, all occupied by Israel in 1967, for their state and see colony construction as a sign of bad faith.

The Israeli military withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and dismantled its colonies there — but this required the removal of only several thousand colonists. The exploding colonist numbers in the West Bank has led many on both sides to conclude that a partition of the Holy Land may no longer even be possible.

Paul Hirschson of the Israeli foreign ministry dismissed the criticism.

“Let stop talking rubbish about this (colonies) being an obstacle,” he said, arguing that some of the colonies would become part of Israel in a future deal. “This has zero impact on the peace map.”

He was referring to the oft-cited — and much disputed —argument that most of the colonies are close enough to pre-1967 border that minor adjustments could leave them on the Israeli side of a negotiated border.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank, said that Israel currently faces no consequences for maintaining its occupation, while reversing it is politically costly. Without pressure, Israel is unlikely to change course, he said.

This has led even some Israelis to call for international economic pressure aimed at forcing their country to halt its settlement enterprise.

“The time has come for sanctions,” commentator Gideon Levy recently wrote in the liberal Haaretz daily. “When these are felt in Israel, only then should an international committee be formed ... where the world will translate economic sanctions into political achievements.”