Israel coalition in crisis over Hamas ceasefire

ISRAEL’S government was in turmoil yesterday after one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s main coalition partners said there was “no possibility” the government could keep working and called for early elections.

The Right-wing Jewish Home party called for the government to dissolve itself and pressed for a date for elections after Mr Netanyahu refused it control of the defence ministry.

The party stopped short of pulling out of the government, which would have triggered an immediate collapse, but there seemed little prospect of the fractious coalition holding together.

Mr Netanyahu issued a last-minute call for unity, warning it would be a “a historic mistake” for Right-wing parties to bring down his government.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu will continue to talk with coalition leaders on Sunday so that they will not make a historic mistake of toppling a Right-wing government,” said a spokesman for Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Mr Netanyahu raised the spectre of the collapse of a Likud-led government in 1992, which led to Labour taking power and signing the Oslo Accords agreement with the Palestinians, to the fury of the Israeli Right.

Jewish Home were adamant there was nothing left to negotiate and called for “elections as soon as possible”.

The crisis was prompted when Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s hawkish defence minister, resigned on Wednesday in protest at Mr Netanyahu’s decision to strike a ceasefire deal with Hamas to end 24 hours of fighting in Gaza.

He accused the prime minister of “surrendering to terror”. His decision to take his party out of the coalition left the government with a majority of one, controlling 61 seats out of 120.