Israel is moving forward with controversial plans to build thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank, splitting the territory in two, a scheme 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

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.

A letter signed by organizations including Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders and CARE accused Israel of “weaponizing aid” as people starve in war-torn Gaza and using it as a tool to entrench control.

The Israeli military says it recently struck a group of militants in the Gaza Strip who were disguised as aid workers and using a car with the logo of World Central Kitchen