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.

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions,” Smotrich, a settler himself, said on Wednesday.

“Every settlement, every neighbourhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”

Settlement development in E1, an open tract of Palestinian land east of Jerusalem,

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