OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: U.S. pressure delayed an Israeli ministerial vote Sunday on a proposed bill that Washington fears entails the annexation of Jewish settlements near Jerusalem, an Israeli lawmaker said.

The delay came as Israel’s defense minister said Sunday he wants to expand the policy of demolishing homes of Palestinians involved in fatal attacks to include perpetrators who seriously wound Israelis.

The “Greater Jerusalem” legislation would put some settlements in the occupied West Bank, built on land Palestine seeks for a future state and viewed as illegal by most countries, under the jurisdiction of Jerusalem’s municipality.

The bill, proposed by a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, was to have been submitted for approval Sunday to a ministerial committee on legislation, a first step before a series of ratification votes in Parliament.

But Likud lawmaker David Bitan, chairman of Netanyahu’s coalition in Parliament, said a vote by the Cabinet committee would be delayed because Washington told Israel the bill’s passage could impede U.S. efforts to revive peace talks that collapsed in 2014. “There is American pressure that claims this is about annexation and that this could interfere with the peace process,” Bitan told Army Radio.

“The prime minister doesn’t think this is about annexation. I don’t think so either. We have to take the time to clarify matters to the Americans. Therefore, if the bill passes in a week, or in a month, it’s less problematic,” he said.

Proponents of the legislation say it falls short of formal land annexation to Israel but will enable some 150,000 settlers to vote in Jerusalem city elections. Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, a supporter of the bill, has said this would “ensure a Jewish majority in a united Jerusalem.”

Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital, including the eastern sector it captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a 1967 Middle East war, has not won international recognition.

Israeli media reports said the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, had conveyed misgivings about the legislation, under which the large Maale Adumim and Beitar Illit settlements would become part of a Greater Jerusalem municipality.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as telling Cabinet ministers Sunday: “The Americans turned to us and inquired what the bill was all about. As we have been coordinating with them until now, it is worth continuing to talk and coordinate with them.”

A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman declined immediate comment.

Some 500,000 Israelis live in the both-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem areas, home to more than 2.6 million Palestinians. Israel disputes that its settlements are illegal, citing historical, Biblical and political links to the territory, as well as security considerations.

Also Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement that he has instructed the army and Defense Ministry to “examine the possibility to demolish the homes of terrorists who carried out attacks in which Israeli civilians were seriously wounded.”

“Destroying the homes of terrorists who carried out murderous attacks is an effective and proven means in the fight against terror and deters those planning attacks,” the statement said.

“There’s no difference between an attack that ends in murder and one that ends in a serious injury,” Lieberman said.

“In both cases the homes of the terrorists must be demolished.”

Israel says the demolition policy, in place since 1967, is a means of deterring future attackers.

Critics of the policy say it is a form of collective punishment, forcing family members to suffer for the acts of relatives, and illegal under international law.

They also question whether the policy acts as a deterrent or if it creates more potential attackers due to the anger it provokes.

In 2005 Israel halted the practice at the recommendation of a military panel. There were essentially no demolitions until 2014, with the exception of 2009, when a number of homes were sealed and razed in East Jerusalem. A wave of Palestinian attacks prompted Netanyahu to announce the resumption of demolitions in the occupied West Bank as a policy in 2014.

According to Israeli NGO Hamoked, since renewing the policy in 2014 and until the end of 2016, Israel has carried out punitive demolitions of 35 homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and sealed another seven homes in the two territories.