(UPDATED) The vote comes as European nations voice growing concern over settlement expansion in the West Bank

JERUSALEM (UPDATED) – Israel's cabinet voted Sunday, February 4, to formally authorize a rogue West Bank settlement in response to last month's murder of a rabbi who lived there, officials said, in a rare move likely to spark an international outcry. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday that those who try to “break our spirit and weaken us made a grave mistake.” He says his government will legalize Havat Gilad to “allow the continuing of normal life there.”

Earlier this month, Havat Gilad resident Rabbi Raziel Shevah, a 35-year-old father of six, was shot dead from a passing vehicle as he drove near his home in the unauthorized settlement outpost near Nablus. Havat Gilad, a community of a few hundred Israelis, is among these rogue outposts and is located deep inside the West Bank, away from areas Israel expects to keep under any peace deal with the Palestinians. The anti-settlement group Peace Now called the effort to legalize the outpost a “cynical exploitation of the murder.”

Meanwhile, Israel on Sunday demolished a two-classroom school in a Bedouin community in the West Bank, saying the EU-funded structure was built illegally without proper permits and that it was in a precarious condition.
The Cabinet of Israel decides to legalize a previously unauthorized outpost "deep inside the [occupied] West Bank", Havat Gilad, allegedly in reaction to the recent killing of an Israeli rabbi there.