Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the West Bank "cannot be Judenrein" -- a Nazi expression meaning "cleansed of Jews".

According to the English-language daily Jerusalem Post on Friday, Netanyahu made the remarks while meeting with the German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday.

"Judaea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein," the Israeli premier said using Israel's normal terminology for the occupied West Bank.

The international community including the US, which supports a two-state solution to end the long running Israeli-Palestinians conflict, has kept urging Israel to halt all settlement activities in the occupied territories.

Palestinians say peace talks with Israel will be resumed if The Israeli government freezes settlement activities in the West Bank.

Israel, however, rejects world wide demands for settlement work to stop, and says it is pushing to retain what it calls "natural growth".

The settlements are built on the land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and are in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says the occupying power is not allowed to transfer citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory.

HRF/DT