Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz have canceled all overseas trips for the next few weeks, seeking to keep "close to home" at the coalition reels from recent upsets.
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A state visit is usually at least two days long but according to a source privy to the move, the government's captains do not wish to be away even for such a short period "at this sensitive time."
The coalition, still reeling from Yamina MK Idit Silman's decision to step down as coalition chair, was rattled further on Monday, by the ouster of MK Amichai Chikli.
The Yamina lawmaker was, in fact, pushed out by the coalition following a series of moves against it, which saw the party appeal to the Knesset House Committee to declare him a renegade MK.
The move, granted after a near-12 hour debate, means that under the Knesset's bylaw, Chikli will be unable to join any existing faction in the next elections and should he wish to run, he would have to form a new party. The only way for him to join another party ahead of the next vote would be to resign his parliamentary seat immediately.
Silman's departure shattered the coalition's narrow majority in parliament and Chikli's ejection leaves it on even shakier ground.
Chikli, who maintains that any diverging on his part from the Yamina line is based on ideological grounds, said he would appeal the decision in court.
Bennett and Gantz were slated to visit India ahead of Passover. The prime minister postponed the trip after contracting COVID-19, and Gantz did the same over the uptick in terrorist attacks.
So far, however, the visit has not been rescheduled.
Meetings with world leaders in their capitals are a major component of heads of state's diplomatic work.
Lapid's office said that "the foreign minister will travel if an urgent need arises."
The current situation has relegated the three to holding video calls with their counterparts overseas.
Foreign leaders, meanwhile, are traveling to Israel as usual. US President Joe Biden is expected to visit the Jewish state in the coming months.
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