Smotrich’s settlement plans come as the international spotlight on Israel intensifies, with growing calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war amid mass concerns over the ongoing malnutrition crisis in Gaza and backlash over Netanyahu’s plan to fully occupy the Gaza Strip.

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,

Israel’s far-right finance minister says a contentious new settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is going ahead, a project that Palestinians and rights groups worry will scuttle plans for a future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts.

TEL AVIV, (Reuters) -Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich approved plans overnight for a settlement that would split East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank, a move his office said would bury the idea of a Palestinian state.

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.

Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted that the construction could thwart Palestinian statehood plans

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

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