Israel has given final approval for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that experts say would damage plans for any future territorially contiguous Palestinian state in the territory. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who announced the plan on August 14, hailed the decision as historic and framed the approval as a rebuke to Western countries that announced their plans to recognise a Palestinian state in recent weeks.
Under the plan, Israel will build more than 3,000 homes on stolen Palestinian land in the E1 settlement area. The settlements would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied West Bank, connecting Jerusalem to an existing illegal settlement, Maale Adumim.