JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu will pursue a policy of increased settlement expansion in the West Banl(, his Lil(ud party said on Wednesday, as he prepared to unveil his new cabinet.

Following his November 1 election win, veteran hawk Netanyahu secured a mandate to form a government backed by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and an extreme-right bloc.

The incoming government has sparked fears of a military escalation in the West Bank amid the worst violence in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory for nearly 20 years.

`The Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,` a statement of policy priorities released by his right-wing Likud party said.

`The government will encourage and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, in Judea and Samaria,` it added, using the biblical names for the West Bank. The statement also referred to demands by Netanyahu`s far-right allies to give security forces greater leeway in the use of force in the occupied West Bank.

`The government will strive to strengthen security forces and support fighters and police to combat and defeat terrorism,` the state-ment said. The statement came as Netanyahu unveiled the appointment of former general Yoav Galant as defence minister.

Galant, a member of Likud and a close Netanyahu ally, was given the 1(ey portfolio a day before the cabinet is expected to be sworn in before parliament.

A former commander of the southern region of Israel, Galant has also served in several ministerial posts in Netanyahu`s previous cabinets. Born in 1958 to Polish holocaust survivors, Galant had a long career in the army, reaching the rank of general in 2002, and becoming military attache to former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

He would later be appointed commander-in-chief of the southern military region, serving at the time of Israel`s unilateral withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave of Gaza in the summer of 2005.

Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the extreme-right formation Religious Zionism, is to be the minister with control over civil affairs in the West Bank a responsibility usually falling to the defence minister.

Netanyahu also announced his intention to elect a new speaker of parliament on Thursday, Amir Ohana who, in 2019, was the first openly gay lawmaker to take up a ministerial post in Israel.-AFP