Israel said Thursday it was moving forward with controversial plans to build thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank, a development far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said would “permanently bury the idea of a Palestinian state.

Israel’s far-right finance minister has announced the final approval of contentious new settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which Palestinians and rights groups worry will scutt

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.