(Reuters) -Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved plans overnight for a settlement that would split East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank, a move his office said would bury the idea of a Palestinian state.
It was not immediately clear if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the plan to revive the long-frozen E1 scheme, which Palestinians and world powers have said would lop the West Bank in two and will likely draw international ire.
In a statement headlined “Burying the idea of a Palestinian state,” Smotrich’s spokesperson said the minister would give a press conference later on Thursday about the plan to build 3,401 houses for Israeli settlers between an existing settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Israel had frozen construction plans there since 2012 because of objections from the United States, European allies and other world powers who considered the project a threat to any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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