Israel’s finance minister approves settlement to ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’

 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.

It was not immediately clear if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the plan to revive the long-frozen E1 scheme, which Palestinians and world powers have said would lop the West Bank in two and will likely draw international fury.

In a statement headlined "Burying the idea of a Palestinian state," Smotrich's spokesperson said the minister would give a press conference later on Thursday about the plan to build 3,401 houses for Israeli settlers between an existing settlement in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Israel had frozen construction plans there since 2012 because of objections from the United States, European allies and other world powers who considered the project a threat to any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

In Gaza

On Wednesday Israeli gunfire killed at least 25 people seeking aid in Gaza, health officials and witnesses said, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again called for what he refers to as the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the war-ravaged territory.

Witnesses and staff at Nasser and Awda hospitals, which received the bodies, said people were shot on their way to aid distribution sites or while awaiting convoys entering Gaza.

Netanyahu wants to realise Donald Trump's vision of relocating much of Gaza's population of over two million people through what he refers to as "voluntary migration" — and what critics have warned could be ethnic cleansing.

"Give them the opportunity to leave! First, from combat zones, and also from the strip if they want," Netanyahu said in an interview aired Tuesday with Israeli TV station i24 to discuss the planned offensive in areas that include Gaza City, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people shelter.

Ceasefire

Efforts to revive ceasefire talks have resumed after apparently breaking down last month. Hamas and Egyptian officials met Wednesday in Cairo, according to Hamas official Taher al-Nounou.

Israel has no plans to send its negotiating team to talks in Cairo, Netanyahu's office said.

Israel's plans to widen its military offensive against Hamas to parts of Gaza it does not yet control have sparked condemnation at home and abroad, and could be intended to raise pressure on Hamas to reach a ceasefire.

The militants still hold 50 hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war. Israel believes around 20 are still alive. Families fear a new offensive endangers them.