Israel FM ends Netanyahu partnership, stays in government

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced on Monday ending the partnership between his Yisrael Beiteinu party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, yet without pulling out of the government.

“Disagreements between the prime minister and me are fundamental and do not allow for a future partnership,” Lieberman was quoted by Haaretz as telling a press conference.

He cited differences with Netanyahu on the way to handle an upsurge in violence amid tensions in the Arab towns and the Palestinian territories.

“I am not attacking the prime minister – he has the right to his views. I see matters differently and I don’t hide it,” Lieberman said.

He pointed out that the end of the partnership does not mean the collapse of the coalition government, saying his party will remain in the government and its ministers will maintain their portfolios.

According to the Israeli paper, after Lieberman’s announcement, the ruling coalition is set to shrink from 31 Knesset seats to only 20.

This means Netanyahu’s party will only have one seat over the second largest Knesset party, Yesh Atid.

Lieberman and Netanyahu have recently traded criticism over how Israel should respond to rocket firing from Gaza.

Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett have been calling for a large-scale operation in Gaza, which prompted Netanyahu to implicitly criticize the pair, saying that officials need to be “level-headed and responsible,” and not use “inflammatory and brash” rhetoric.

At least nine Palestinians were killed in the early hours of Monday in a series of Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

On Sunday, two Palestinians were killed and a third was injured when Israeli war jets hit Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

Israeli aircraft have been launching strikes against targets inside the Gaza Strip in reaction to what it called a surge in rocket attacks from the Palestinian enclave.

The violence also comes hard on the heels of the June 12 kidnapping and subsequent killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank.

Netanyahu has blamed the incident on Hamas.

The Israeli army has since detained hundreds of Palestinians, including Hamas lawmakers and former ministers.