Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signed an agreement to push ahead with a controversial settlement expansion plan that will cut across land that the Palestinians hope would form the basis of a future state.

"There will not be a Palestinian state," Netanyahu said during a visit to the Maale Adumim settlement in the West Bank on Thursday.

"This place belongs to us...We will safeguard our heritage, our land and our security. We are going to double the city’s population."

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Israel's Higher Planning Committee gave final approval for the E1 settlement project in the occupied West Bank in August.

The plan, on an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades but was frozen due

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