Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu loses office, Naftali Bennett replaces him

Israel‘s longest serving PM Benjamin Netanyahu has lost the office for the first time in 12 years, making way for Naftali Bennett. Israel’s Parliament Knesset passed a vote of confidence in favour of a coalition government stitched together by the anti-Netanyahu forces.

The new government – an unprecedented coalition of ideologically divergent political parties drawn from the Right, the Left and the Centre, along with an Arab party – has a razor-thin majority in a 120-member house.

Earlier, Bennett presented his new government’s ministers in the Knesset  in a speech constantly interrupted by supporters of 71-year-old Netanyahu.

Amid incessant heckling from rival bloc’s lawmakers, Bennett said that he is proud “of the ability to sit with people of different opinions”.

“At the decisive moment we took responsibility,” he said. “The alternative to this government was more elections, more hate, which would have broken up the country.” “It is time for responsible leaders from different parts of the nation to stop this madness,” he asserted.