ISRAEL’S Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced approval today of new settlement construction he said “finally buries” all prospect of a future Palestinian state.

Construction of E1, a settlement that would link Jerusalem to the existing illegal settlement of Maale Adumim, has been held up for decades, partly due to US opposition. It would cut the West Bank in half, separating occupied East Jerusalem — internationally regarded as the future capital of an independent Palestine — from major Palestinian centres Ramallah and Bethlehem.

“This reality finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognise and no-one to recognise,” Mr Smotrich, a self-styled “fascist homophobe,” declared.

“Anyone in the world who tries today to recognise a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground,” he added, a reference to announcements from a number of Israeli allies, including Britain, France, Canada and Australia, that they will recognise Palestine in September on various conditions.

The announcement prompted a storm of anger from Arab states, while Palestinian Authority official Ahmed al-Deek said it was a “colonial, expansionist and racist move.”

Mr Deek said it would “undermine any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state on the ground... fragment the West Bank, and separate its southern part from the centre and the north.”

But Mr Smotrich suggested that the longstanding opposition of the United States to E1 no longer applied, saying US President Donald Trump and US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee are “true friends of Israel as we have never had before.”

Israeli troops kept up the killing in Gaza today, with at least 23 killed by the Israel Defence Forces by the time the Morning Star went to press, 10 of those while seeking food aid.

Another four people died of starvation in the territory, which is being blockaded by Israel, with only a fraction of the supply of food needed to feed its population being allowed in.

Over 100 non-profit groups warned today that Israeli rules for aid groups in Gaza and the West Bank make it impossible for independent aid groups to operate and will replace them, as they have been in Gaza, with organisations that serve Tel Aviv’s military agenda.