Israel said Thursday it was moving forward with controversial plans to build thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank, a development far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said would “permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state.

Israel's far-right finance minister announced approval of the construction of a contentious settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that he says "buries the idea of a Palestinian state."

Israel’s far-right finance minister said Thursday that a contentious new settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is going ahead — a project that Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a Palestinian state by effectively cutting the territory into two parts.