Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Israel Katz and Likud Caucus chairman MK Haim Katz met on Monday and decided to work towards the cancellation of the primaries.
With few police officers out enforcing the rules, Tel Avivians take to the streets and the city's promenade, some without masks. In the formerly "green tourist island" of Eilat, streets are empty, hotels closed.
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein visits vaccination center in Sderot, assures the public that there will be no shortage of COVID vaccines.
Some 379,000 people have received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, Israel close to administering 100,000 doses a day, Health Minister Edelstein says. Minister praises "amazing work" of Health Ministry, healthcare providers, hospitals, Magen David Adom, and Israel's citizens in vaccination campaign.
Polls conducted over the past three months continue to project that for the first time since its inception in the mid-1960s, the Labor party will fail to pass the prerequisite four-Knesset-seat electoral threshold.
While officially Shas and United Torah Judaism party officials say they intend to stand with Netanyahu, cracks have already begun to appear in the Haredi stance as this time around, the prime minister is not being challenged by secularists like Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid but rather New Hope's conservative Gideon Sa'ar and modern Orthodox Zeev Elkin.
The latest Channel 12 News survey sees Likud hold lead with 28 Knesset seats, while Blue and White plunges to just four mandates – the minimal prerequisite to get into parliament.
Over 1,000 COVID patients hospitalized, 160 of whom were listed in critical condition. 2,861 medical workers quarantined.
The chronic instability of the proportional system must convince those who care about the country that our failed electoral method doesn't need fixing, rather changing – to a more regional-majoritorian system, which will stabilize the center of Israel's political map.
Gabi Ashkenazi appears poised to quit Blue and White unless party leader Benny Gantz retires from politics or offers to be his No. 2. In effort to differentiate themselves from New Hope, Yamina members say Gideon Sa'ar's party offering voters "more of the same." "They're all politicians who were recently in the Knesset and the government and failed," they say.
