Israel will not authorise new settlements in the occupied West Bank in the coming months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Monday, after behind-the-scenes talks to head off a planned U.N. Security Council vote on the contested issue.
Netanyahu's religious-nationalist coalition on Feb. 12 granted retroactive authorisation to nine settler outposts that had been erected without government approval, angering the Palestinians, who want the West Bank for a future state.
