Israel announced a plan for thousands of new Jewish settlement homes in the occupied West Bank yesterday as Washington voiced readiness to back de facto Israeli annexations there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to start cabinet discussions on July 1 about declaring Israeli sovereignty over the settlements and the strategically important Jordan Valley in the West Bank. Fresh construction for the settlement of Efrat was approved on land that could accommodate "around 7,000 housing units", Defence Minister Naftali Bennett's office said in a statement. The settlements are deemed illegal by most world powers and condemned by the Palestinians, who see all the West Bank, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, as theirs for a future state.