Netanyahu forms right-wing religious governing coalition in Israel

Israel's designated prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has succeeded in forming a right-wing religious government coalition.
The leader of the right-wing conservative Likud party informed President Isaac Herzog of the new government on Wednesday evening shortly before a key deadline to form a governing coalition was due to expire.
Netanyahu completed his comeback seven weeks after elections left a complicated parliamentary landscape out of which to craft a government.
Netanyahu, who was prime minister from 1996 to 1999 and then again from 2009 to 2021, led his Likud party to take the greatest number of seats in November's elections, the country's fifth in four years.
However, with only 32 seats, Likud needed coalition partners to get a 61-seat majority in the Knesset.