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.

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.

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."