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.

Ministers in the Israeli government have in recent months pushed for more rapid development of these settlements, explicitly as a rebuke to claims of Palestinian sovereignty.

Israel's far-right finance minister announced approval of the construction of a contentious settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that he says "buries the idea of a Palestinian state."