Turkey said the move further underlined the need for the world to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership.

“Israel’s Judaizing of East Jerusalem represents a flagrant violation of international law and the international humanitarian law as well as all conventions that govern the duties of an occupation power,” Abdullah Kanaan, secretary-general of the Royal Committee on Jerusalem Affairs, said in a statement.

The decision clearly shows Israel’s contempt of the international community as represented by the United Nations and its relevant resolutions that consider East Jerusalem an occupied land, Kanaan said.

He urged Arab countries to launch “a counter political and diplomatic assault throughout the globe, particularly in the United States, with a view to putting pressure on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian land and ensure full membership for the Palestinian state”.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said: “Israel’s decision raises serious doubts about its sincerity and its true intentions. It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and is unacceptable.”

It added: “Israel’s pursuing of construction in illegal settlements on Palestinian land shows one more time that the Palestinian request to be recognized as a full member of the UN is justified and to the point.”

The Israeli government on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for construction of 1,100 new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem.

Relations between Israel and its once close ally Turkey have steadily deteriorated since May 2010, when a botched Israeli raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza Strip left nine Turkish nationals dead.

— With input from Abdul Jalil Mustafa