Senior officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Monday that Israel does not intend on canceling its plan to expand settlement construction decided upon after the Palestinians won upgraded status at the United Nations.

Reuters reports Britain, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark summoned Israel’s respective ambassadors to express their strong disapproval at its decision to erect 3,000 housing units in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel remained defiant. "Israel will continue to stand by its vital interests, even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision that was made," one official said.

Israel has faced a wave of top-level diplomatic protests after the construction proposals emerged on Friday as payback for the Palestinians winning the rank of a UN non-member observer state in a vote on Thursday.

According to AP, none of the four European governments openly threatened concrete measures to punish Israel.

Britain and France denied reports that they were planning on recalling their ambassadors from Israel. A spokesman for David Cameron said:

"We are not proposing to do that. We are not proposing to do anything further at this stage ...Clearly, we are concerned about the situation ...but we are not setting out any further action at this stage."

The Palestinians and most western governments regard the E1 piece of land, included in the plans, as the most contentious in the West Bank. Should Israel press ahead with plans to build a settlement there, it would make the creation of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital almost impossible.

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