“This is the way Hamas does business. Hamas hides military infrastructure in and around hospitals. It plots and plans to attack civilians while using civilian buildings as cover,” she said.

“Hamas chooses to devote its resources to terrorism instead of governing and reaching peace,” she said.

Mladenov, meanwhile, told the Security Council that Israel has announced a substantial increase in West Bank settlements in the past three months and that despite the resolution, passed with 14 votes in favor and a rare abstention by the US, “no such steps have been taken” to end settlements.

“Since March 24, there has been substantial increase in settlement-related announcements as compared with the previous reporting period,” he said.

Israel is moving forward with plans for nearly 4,000 housing units and has issued 2,000 tenders for settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, he added.

The United Nations considers all settlements to be illegal and has raised alarm that the construction on land earmarked for a future Palestinian state will kill off the two-state solution to end the Middle East conflict.

Haley has branded the resolution a “terrible mistake” after the previous US administration refrained from using its veto to block the measure.

The envoy’s report to the council came on the same day as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the start of work on the Amichai settlement in the northern West Bank.

Mladenov quoted Netanyahu as saying that “there will never be a government that is more pro-settlement than our government.”

President Donald Trump’s special representative Jason Greenblatt arrived in Israel for meetings on relaunching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in 2014.