Israeli far-right minister backs contentious West Bank settlement plan

Israel’s finance minister backed plans on Thursday to build 3,400 homes in a particularly contentious area of the occupied West Bank, calling for the territory’s annexation in response to several countries’ plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

The United Nations chief warned that building Israeli homes in the area would “put an end to” hopes for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel has long had ambitions to build on the sensitive parcel of land east of Jerusalem…