(Reuters) -The U.N. human rights office said on Friday an Israeli plan to build to build thousands of new homes between an Israeli settlement in the West Bank and near East Jerusalem was illegal under international law, and would put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction, which it described as a war crime.

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday vowed to press on a long-delayed settlement project, saying the move would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.

The U.N. rights office spokesperson said the plan would break the West Bank into isolated enclaves and that it was “a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.

About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the Wes

See Full Page