Source: International Business Times
Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last week backed plans to build some 3,400 homes on the ultrasensitive parcel of land AFP Israel approved a major settlement project on Wednesday in an area of the occupied West Bank that the international community has warned threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state. Israel has long had ambitions to build on the roughly 12-square-kilometre (five-square-mile) parcel known as E1 just east of Jerusalem, but the plan had been stalled for years amid international opposition. The latest announcement also drew condemnation, with UN chief Antonio Guterres saying the settlement would effectively cleave the West Bank in two and pose an "existential threat" to a contiguous Palestinian state.
