Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fails to meet a midnight deadline to put together a new governing coalition, blames Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett's "refusal to commit to a right-wing government."
Joint Arab List members worry that Ra'am has closed a deal with the Likud to recommend Yamina leader Naftali Bennett to form the next government.
A vaccinated adult and an infant entering the country from abroad are diagnosed with the Brazilian variant, while a vaccinated Israeli returning from abroad is diagnosed with the Chilean variant. There are now just 1,259 known active cases of the virus in Israel.
President Reuven Rivlin does not intend to hold another official round of consultations with party heads once Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mandate to form a government expires at midnight on Tuesday.
The magnificent building that hosted the conference passed through the ownership of an English earl who named it after his wives, a colonel and an opera singer who turned it into a cultural center, and a businessman from Turin. Today it serves as an apartment hotel, but no one in the city forgets that it also used to be an SS headquarters.
Bennett shoots back shortly after Netanyahu's post, saying, "I never asked for the premiership, I just asked Netanyahu to form a right-wing government, which we would have supported."
For first time since March 2020, Israel Defense Forces reports no active coronavirus cases. Israel's infection rate stands at 0.2%. There are currently 1,288 active cases of the of the coronavirus, 104 of which are serious.
Sources who spoke to the Yamina leader in recent days tell Israel Hayom that if Naftali Bennett wanted to, he could have established a government for change in two days."
Rabbi Zvi Yisrael Tau, the spiritual leader of the extremist religious-Zionist Noam party, backtracks on previous statement denouncing any cooperation's with the Islamist Ra'am party, says it may be necessary as a left-wing government harbors a "host of threats" to Israel's character.
With Netanyahu set to lose his mandate to form the next government overnight Tuesday, President Reuven Rivlin "will evaluate things given the circumstances at the relevant time," official says.