Israel’s far-right finance minister says 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 future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts.

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."

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, said on Thursday that a plan to significantly expand a settlement near occupied East Jerusalem had won approval. But a procedural step remained.