Bulldozers were spotted hard at work in the Adam settlement in the northern West Bank where around 30 homes are due to be built, public radio said.
Construction was expected to start in at least eight settlements, including in Kiryat Arba, just outside the flashpoint southern city of Hebron, where 600 extreme right-wing settlers live amidst 163,000 Palestinians, the privately run Channel Two television said.
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The expiry of the construction moratorium, which formally ended at midnight (2200 GMT Sunday), means that anyone who obtained a permit to build prior to its coming into force can now go ahead and start work.
Building work at this stage is likely to be limited to isolated settlements where several hundred housing units are due to be built in the coming months, news reports said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to extend the restrictions on construction despite intense international pressure.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas had threatened to abandon peace talks if construction resumed but on Sunday said he would delay his decision until after a meeting with Arab foreign ministers on October 4.
A wide-scale resumption of settlement construction would almost certainly force Abbas to quit the talks but Israel said it was hoping he would tolerate low-key construction.
Netanyahu has urged the settlers to keep a low profile as they start building again and called on them to display "restraint and responsibility".
