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.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted that the construction, which is expected to receive final approval later this month, could thwart Palestinian statehood plans.

Israel’s freeze on Patriarchate bank accounts has escalated tensions with Christian institutions, prompting sharp condemnation from Jordan.

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 coin minted by Jewish rebels just before the destruction of the Second Temple – an event Jesus predicted in the Gospels – has been unearthed in Jerusalem.

Researchers link the rare bronze to Shimon Bar Giora; it will be displayed this summer at the Jay & Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel.

TEL AVIV, (Reuters) -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.

Twenty years ago, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, dismantling 21 Jewish settlements and pulling out its forces