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.

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.

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.