Israel ´legalising´ rogue settlement in response to murder: Netanyahu

Jerusalem: Israel´s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ministers would grant formal authorisation Sunday to a rogue West Bank settlement in response to the murder last month of a rabbi who lived there.

"The government will today regularise the status of Havat Gilad to allow the continuance of normal life there," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, referring to the wildcat settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The official cabinet agenda says ministers will hear a motion to designate the 15-year-old outpost as a "new community" which will have the necessary building permits and a state budget.

Some 50 families live in the outpost.

Rabbi Raziel Shevah was shot dead near Havat Gilad, where he lived, on January 9.

The following week, Israeli troops searching for his attackers shot dead what they described as a Palestinian suspect in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Havat Gilad.