The Israeli Knesset set the first of next November as the date for holding the general elections, and its members unanimously agreed to dissolve it, and Yair Lapid took over as the caretaker prime minister to succeed Naftali Bennett, while opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to launch the Likud party's campaign for the elections.

Today, Thursday, 92 out of 120 deputies voted in favor of dissolving the Knesset (parliament), in a vote that also allows Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to take over as prime minister, succeeding Naftali Bennett, as a brief ceremony was held at the Prime Minister's headquarters in West Jerusalem to hand over the position.

After the ceremony, Lapid, 58, moved to the Nazi Holocaust memorial "Yad Vashem" in Jerusalem, and said in a statement, "There, I promised my late father that I would always keep Israel strong and able to defend itself and protect its children."

Lapid will retain the position of foreign minister, and in mid-July he will receive US President Joe Biden in Israel on his first tour of the Middle East since his arrival at the White House.


Bennett retires

Bennett had announced yesterday that he would later retire from politics, and added that Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked would take over the leadership of the Yamina party, as his successor.

"I will remain an honest soldier for the country I have served all my life, as a soldier, officer, minister and prime minister," Bennett said in his farewell speech. "Israel is the love of my life alongside my family."

He added, "There is no job more difficult than the position of prime minister. My government has been able in one year to do what no government can do for an entire term."

Bennett (left) and Lapid during the Knesset session (Reuters)

Netanyahu attacks

Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to launch the Likud party's election campaign, telling shoppers in a Jerusalem mall that addressing the price hikes that he blamed on the "bad" Bennett government, will be his "first task" after his return to power.

Netanyahu also attacked the outgoing Bennett government, saying, "This government lacks vision, experience, and the ability to implement... They promised us change, talked about recovery, and did an experiment... But the experiment failed."

He added, "This is what happens when they take a false right with an extreme left and mix it with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Joint (Arab) List. This is the result, and on this matter will be the next election campaign."

The upcoming elections are expected to witness a fierce competition between Netanyahu and Lapid, as head of the Israel Democracy Institute Yohanan Plessner believes that the decision to dissolve the Knesset shed more light on "the highly polarized reality of Israel."

This was considered a "dysfunction" and required "long-awaited electoral and constitutional reforms".

Mansoor Abbas' statements

On the other hand, the head of the United Arab List, Mansour Abbas, defended his decision to participate in the Israeli government, and said, "We succeeded in presenting ourselves as a political force."

He added that they would continue to defend the Arab community within the Green Line and ensure that issues such as the poor living conditions of their constituents were "on the table, not under it."