Israel started building 2,354 housing units in the settlements throughout 2013, a 123 percent rise from 2012, the Central Bureau of Statistics published on Monday.

In 2012 there were 1,133 housing units which had been constructed. The sharp spike in construction in the West Bank area, on lands Israel occupied and settled following the 1967 Mideast War, is the largest of its kind throughout the country and higher than in any other area in Israel.

The international community views the settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as illegal and dubs it an obstacle to the peace process with the Palestinians.

The rather explosive data is revealed at the same day in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with US President Barack Obama in Washington and discuss the peace process, which resumed last July after a three-year halt.

"Now Netanyahu's government is only committed to one thing: building in the settlements," Yariv Oppenheimer, secretary-general of the Peace Now Non-Governmental Organization monitoring the construction in the settlements told Ynet following the publication.

"The public resources and construction are transferred to the settlements without any regard to the diplomatic process whatsoever," he added.

According to a report by the organization published in July, the Israeli government advanced plans for the construction of 5, 000 housing units between the months of March and July 2013.

In the past several months, the Israeli government announced the construction of thousands of housing units in the settlements, to the ire of the United States and the Palestinian Authority.