Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would agree to give up "some settlements" in the occupied West Bank in order to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

"Obviously some of the settlements won't be part of the agreement, everybody understands that," Netanyahu said in an interview which will be broadcast Saturday on Israel's Channel 2 news.

Netanyahu's remarks mark the first time he states in Hebrew his willingness to exchange settlements for peace.

The settlements, built on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War, are deemed by international law as illegal and are dubbed by the international community as an obstacle to peace.

The settlements are a core issue in the negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians, which restarted last July after a three-year halt over Israel's settlement construction in the West Bank.

Despite the peace talks, Israel has increased the construction in the settlements. According to figures released by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics earlier this week, Israel started building 2,354 housing units in the settlements throughout 2013, a 123 percent rise from 2012.