LONDON (Reuters) -British foreign minister David Lammy said on Wednesday that a widely condemned Israeli settlement plan would, if implemented, constitute a breach of international law and risk dividing a future Palestinian state.

The E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, received the final go-ahead from a defence ministry planning commission on Wednesday.

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israel has entered the first stages of its planned assault on Gaza City after a clash with Hamas and already has a hold on the outskirts of the city, Israeli military spokesman Effie Defrin told reporters on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Howard GollerEditing by Gareth Jones)

ATMEH, Syria (Reuters) -U.S. forces took part in a pre-dawn raid in northwestern Syria early on Wednesday that targeted a member of the Islamic State group, a U.S. official and a Syrian security source said.

A second Syrian security source and Syria's state-owned Al-Ikhbariya said the target was killed as he tried to escape.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -A widely condemned Israeli settlement plan that would cut across land which the Palestinians seek for a state received final approval on Wednesday, according to a statement from Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

The approval of the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, was announced last week by Smotrich and received final go-ahead from a defence ministry planning commission on Wednesday, he said.

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) -The mothers of some fighters in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) called on Wednesday for an amnesty for their children and an end to decades of death, before a Turkish parliamentary commission overseeing the group's disarmament.

"We mothers do not want to cry anymore. Let us bury weapons, not our children," Nezahat Teke, a Kurdish mother speaking in broken Turkish, told lawmakers on behalf of a group called the "Peace Mothers".

Syrian state media said a US-led anti-jihadist coalition killed an Iraqi leader from the Islamic State group during an operation on Wednesday in the country's northwest.

"Coalition forces carried out an air drop targeting a house in the town of Atme" in Idlib province, state television cited an unidentified security source as saying.

By Emma Farge and Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -International aid groups say they have not yet been able to deliver shelter materials to Gaza despite Israeli authorities saying they have lifted restrictions on such supplies, and warn that further delays could cause more Palestinian deaths.

Aid organisations say Israel had in effect been blocking the delivery of materials for shelters for nearly six months, with tent poles previously listed among items Israeli authorities considered could have a military as well as civilian use.

ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey supports efforts to establish a permanent peace in Ukraine with the participation of all parties, President Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Wednesday, the Turkish presidency said.

Erdogan also told Putin he was closely following developments related to the process, and that Turkey had strived for a just peace since the beginning of the war, it said.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Leo plans to visit Lebanon, the country's senior Catholic official announced on Wednesday, in what could be the first visit outside Italy by the new leader of the global Church.

The pope will travel to Lebanon "by December", Cardinal Bechara Rai told the al-Arabiya television channel.

Rai, leader of the 3.5-million-member Maronite Catholic Church, did not give a specific date for the visit but said "preparations are already underway".

Israel approved a major settlement project on Wednesday in an area of the occupied West Bank that the international community has warned threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.

Israel has long had ambitions to build on the roughly 12-square-kilometre (five-square-mile) parcel known as E1 just east of Jerusalem, but the plan had been stalled for years amid international opposition.