Labour Party joins Netanyahu coalition in Israel

TEL AVIV - The Israeli Labour Party voted Tuesday to join prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, Israel’s Channel 1 television reported.

The vote by party delegates would enable Netanyahu’s conservative coalition to have a majority of 66 seats in the 120-member Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Netanyahu, of the hardline Likud party, and outgoing Defence Minister Ehud Barak, of the left-to-centre Labour Party, had earlier in the day drafted a coalition deal, just in time for the crucial vote by the Labour Party Convention.