Far-right Israeli minister calls for annexation of West Bank

An Israeli minister has suggested annexing more than 80 percent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, east of Jerusalem.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads an ultranationalist party in the governing coalition, proposed that Israeli sovereignty should be applied to 82 percent of the territory in the West Bank.

The Palestinian foreign ministry released a statement condemning Smotrich's calls, saying they "constitute a continuous and direct threat to the realization of a Palestinian state on the ground, based on the two-state solution."