OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel’s prime minister says it will legalise an isolated West Bank colony in response to the murder of one of its residents.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government will legalise ‘Havat Gilad’ colony to “allow the continuing of normal life there.”

Earlier this month, Havat Gilad resident Rabbi Raziel Shevah was shot dead from a passing vehicle as he drove near his home in the illegal colony outpost near Nablus. The community of a few hundred colonists is located deep inside the occupied West Bank.

The anti-colony Peace Now group says the effort to legalise it is a “cynical exploitation of the murder”.