Netanyahu signs off on controversial settlement plan, says 'there will be no Palestinian state'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Thursday that there would be no Palestinian state, speaking at a signing ceremony for the expansion of a major settlement project in the occupied West Bank.

"We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state, this place belongs to us," Netanyahu said at the event in Maale Adumim, an Israeli settlement just east of Jerusalem.

Israel has long had ambitions to build on the roughly 12 square kilometre tract of land known as E1, but the plan had been stalled for years due to international opposition.

Last month, Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich backed plans to build around 3,400 homes on the ultra-sensitive parcel of land, which would isolate occupied East Jerusalem from its surroundings.

His announcement drew condemnation, with United Nations chief Antonio Guterres saying the settlement would effectively cleave the West Bank in two and pose an "existential threat" to a contiguous Palestinian state.

All of Israel's settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law.