Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich previously approved plans for a settlement that would split east Jerusalem from the West Bank. The UN human rights office said on Friday that Israel's decision to build a new settlement near east Jerusalem was illegal under international law and that it put nearby Palestinians at risk of forced eviction,

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, said on Thursday that a plan to significantly expand a settlement near occupied East Jerusalem had won approval. But a procedural step remained.

Standing at the site of the planned settlement in Maale Adumim on Thursday, Smotrich, a settler himself, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump had agreed to the revival of the E1 development, though there was no immediate confirmation from either.

Israeli finance minister directly links green-lighting 3,000 housing units in West Bank with killing two-state solution, days after western states said they would recognise Palestine

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday said his country would annex the occupied West Bank if the international community officially recognizes the state of Palestine next month.

Bezalel Smotrich, who is sanctioned by Australia and the UK, says a controversial new development "definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state".

The applications are in the hands of two deputy prosecutors in Karim Khan's absence, but ICC sources are concerned they will not submit them for fear of sanctions

“He backs me up in everything concerning Judea and Samaria, and is letting me create the revolution,” Smotrich says in an address to an event in Maale Adumim organized by the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization representing local authorities in settlements.