“We have deep concerns about these highly contentious settlement construction announcements,” Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, told reporters in Washington. “They will have detrimental impacts on the ground, enflame already heightened tension with the Palestinians and further isolate the Israelis internationally.”

The European Union, in which legislative support for recognition of a Palestinian state has been growing — to Israel’s dismay — also criticized the construction bids. If carried out, the European Union’s foreign office said a statement, they would “further undermine the viability of the two-state solution; they are illegal in international law and constitute an obstacle to peace.”

Ariel Rosenberg, a spokesman for the Israeli Housing Ministry, said the bids were not new but had been remarketed after they failed to attract contractors last year. “Failed tenders are automatically remarketed by professional staff in the Israel Land Authority,” he said, referring to the government agency responsible for land management.

The current housing minister is Uri Ariel of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party.

Most of the world considers the settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to be a violation of international law. The Palestinians intend to establish a state on the lands that Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 war. The Obama administration has described the settlements as “illegitimate.”

American officials have said Israel's repeated announcements of construction bids played a destructive role in the breakdown of American-brokered peace negotiations with the Palestinians last year.