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The Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, has decided to dissolve the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and call early elections, according to Israeli media reports.
Benet and his government partner, Yair Lapid, are expected to announce at 20.00 local time (18:00 GMT) their decision to table a bill next week to dissolve the parliament.
According to the Israeli press, Lapid, current Foreign Minister, will assume the transitional leadership of the Executive until the formation of a new government after the early elections, expected in October.
The coalition government celebrated its first anniversary on June 13, having gone through one crisis after another, especially since April, when it lost its parliamentary majority after the defection of Idit Silman, a member of parliament from Yamina.
In late April, the Arab Islamist Raam party also froze for three weeks its participation in the government in the wake of the violent riots at the Esplanade of the Mosques in Jerusalem during Ramadan, but then decided to rejoin an Executive that has been on the ropes for more than two months.
In recent weeks, there has been much speculation that another Yamina MP, Nir Orbach, might leave the coalition and join the opposition led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
A year ago the coalition was sworn in as the most diverse Executive Government in the country’s history, an amalgam of eight political parties of all stripes — from the right, to the left, to the unprecedented inclusion of an Arab party — that came together to defeat Netanyahu after 12 consecutive years in power.
