Grace Gilson

Israel has approved a long-delayed settlement project that would build 3,400 housing units for Jews in the West Bank, in a move that both its backers and its many critics say would undercut Palestinian ambitions to control the region.

The E1 project would expand Jewish settlements on a stretch of land east of Jerusalem, effectively bisecting the West Bank and limiting Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem from growing.

Proposed decades ago but never finalized, the plan was abruptly moved forward this month by Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and it received final approval Wednesday from a Defense Ministry planning committee.

Smotrich described the plan as a “significant step that practically erases the two-state delusion,” in an apparent rebuke of pl

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