The efforts of the anti-Netanyahu Knesset factions to reach a coalition agreement stalled Tuesday after Islamist Ra'am party leader Mansour Abbas on Monday said he was canceling all negotiation meetings until the latest cycle of violence subsides.
The violence that began in Jerusalem with clashes between the police and rioters on the al-Aqsa mosque compound and clashes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem over the possible expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes, escalated into strikes on Gaza after hundreds of rockets were launched from the Strip at Israeli communities.
2 View gallery
L-R: Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, Yamina head Naftali Bennett and Ra'am chair Mansour Abbas
(Photos: Yoav Dudkevitch, Elad Gutman and Yaron Brener)
Rocket fire on southern Israel continued on Tuesday as the IDF launched numerous attacks against targets in Gaza.
Sources in the so-called "coalition for change" to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister said Tuesday that progress in their efforts to form a government would depend on the security situation, and that a coalition with Abbas was becoming increasingly unlikely despite his earlier statements that his party would support such a government.
The support of Ra'am is critical for the success of the negotiations to form an alternative government to Netanyahu's right-wing, religious coalition.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid was given the mandate to form a government, but his time to do so was limited to 28 days and six of them have already elapsed.
2 View gallery
Rockets being launched from Gaza on Tuesday morning targeting Israeli communities in the south
(Photo: AFP)
Most matters were already agreed on in talks with Abbas, based on the agreements the Islamist leader reached with Netanyahu during the latter's attempts to form a coalition, among them the allocation of funds for the Arab population and for infrastructure, and a comprehensive plan to fight the violent crime plaguing Arab communities.
Parties involved in the coalition talks were set to meet on Tuesday to finalize outstanding differences but since the outbreak of violence, some political sources said that the option of a fifth election since April 2019 was once again on the table due to the political stalemate.