Israel has begun construction of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in 25 years, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it an "honour" to build the illegal outpost in defiance of international law.
"After decades, I have the honour to be the first prime minister to build a settlement in Judea and Samaria," Netanyahu said on Tuesday, calling the occupied West Bank by its biblical name. "There was not, and there will never be, as good a government for the settlements as ours," the prime minister added.
His announcement comes a day after Trump's special representative Jason Greenblatt arrived for talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials on relaunching peace talks that collapsed in 2014.
Since 1992, much of the controversy surrounding Israel's settlement construction in the occupied territories has revolved around expanding existing settlements.
Before the "Oslo Accords" officially opened negotiations in 1993, between Palestine and Israel, roughly 200,000 settlers illegally lived in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since then, Israel has expanded the number of settlers to almost 700,000, thereby making negotiations for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories ineffective.
The new settlement, the first since 1992, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now, is intended to house residents of the illegal West Bank outpost of Amona after the Israeli military demolished it in February.
The plan to construct the new settlement in Emek Shilo, close to the city of Ramallah, was condemned in March both at home and abroad, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressing "disappointment and alarm".
Tuesday's ground-clearing work was in preparation for the installation of dozens of mobile homes for the families evicted from Amona, a spokesman for the main settler organisation, the Yesha Council, said.
The settlers would live in the temporary accommodation while work continues on building more permanent homes, the spokesman added.