WATCH: State Department says U.S. is deeply troubled by Israeli settlement plans

State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S. is deeply troubled by new Israeli plans to build thousands of new homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Watch the briefing in the player above.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced the plans late Sunday, saying they were in response to recent deadly Palestinian violence.

The announcement said Israel would legalize nine settlement outposts that were built without authorization and convene a special planning committee in the coming days to approve additional settlement construction.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hard-line settler whose responsibilities also include authority over settlement construction, said some 10,000 housing units were set to be approved. Netanyahu’s new government is dominated by Israeli ultranationalists who support settlement construction and oppose Palestinian independence.

READ MORE: Israel ramps up demolition of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem

The United States opposes settlement construction on occupied territories claimed by the Palestinians. Over 700,000 Jewish Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem – territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war and sought by the Palestinians for their future state.

But the State Department gave no indication that the Biden administration is prepared to take action. Israel has shrugged off similar statements of concern in the past.