Netanyahu Announces Reaching Agreement to Form New Government in Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, said he had reached an agreement to form a new government after weeks of unexpectedly difficult negotiations with religious and far-right coalition partners.

"I managed (to form a government)," Netanyahu wrote on Twitter, minutes before President Isaac Herzog's midnight deadline.

A spokesman for Herzog confirmed receiving Netanyahu's announcement.

Netanyahu's conservative Likud party and like-minded national religious parties close to ultra-Orthodox and settlers in the West Bank won a comfortable majority in the elections held on November 1, with Netanyahu controlling 64 of the 120 Knesset seats.

However, approval of the formation of the government was hampered by disagreements over a proposed package of legislation on several issues such as planning authority in the West Bank and ministerial control over the police.