West Bank plan 'buries idea of a Palestinian state'

ISRAEL'S far-right finance minister yesterday announced approval of contentious new settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTERS

Palestinians and human rights groups worry the move will scuttle plans for a future Palestinian state by effectively cutting the West Bank into two separate parts.

The announcement came as many countries, including Australia, France and Canada, have said they would recognise a Palestinian state in September.

"This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no one to recognise," Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a ceremony yesterday.

"Anyone in the world who tries today to recognise a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground," he added. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet publicly commented on the plan, but he has touted it in the past.