The Israeli opposition, one step away from ousting Benjamin Netanyahu from power

The calm with which Benjamin Netanyahu received the head of the Egyptian intelligence service, Abbas Kamel, on Sunday to underpin the fragile truce with the Islamist group Hamas contrasted with the anger and anguish appreciated in his latest videos, begging the Israeli conservative Naftali Bennett not to agree with the centrist leader Yair Lapid a coalition of center and left parties.

However, it has been of no use, as Bennett has announced this Sunday that he is willing to cross the Rubicon, despite strong opposition on the right and especially from Likud.. The agreement will make him -despite having only six seats in favor of his party- Prime Minister in the next two years, to then hand over to Lapid. To avoid this, Netanyahu intensified his pressure and offered Bennett and another conservative leader, Gideon Saar, a triple rotation in the Head of Government.

“The political crisis in Israel is unprecedented worldwide.. We can go to fifth, sixth and tenth elections and dismantle the walls of the State until our house falls on top of us or we can take responsibility and stop the madness,” Bennett said in a long-awaited television intervention, accusing his former boss Netanyahu of ” spread hate” and lie when he says he has a chance of forming a conservative coalition. “No one believes anymore that he will keep his promises. Mr. Netanyahu is not trying to form a right-wing government but to drag the whole country into his private masada.”

“For this reason, today I announce my intention to act with all my strength to form a Government of national unity with my friend Yair Lapid, who has shown great leadership so that together we can get the country out of vertigo,” Bennett solemnly added, who minutes later was branded by Netanyahu as the author of the “scam of the century”, alluding to breaking his electoral promise not to agree with Lapid. “Bennett has no values. He received the votes of the right and now gives them to the left. He is only interested in being prime minister,” accused an upset and indignant Netanyahu who asked deputies from Bennett's party to avoid him.

Lapid, who has until midnight on Wednesday to form a government, hopes to complete his mission and oust Netanyahu from power after 12 years in a row.. It was never this close.

Coinciding with the political upheaval, Gabi Ashkenazi traveled to Cairo this morning on the first official visit by an Israeli foreign minister to the Egyptian capital since 2008.. Meanwhile, Abbas Kamel's plane made the opposite route to start a round of contacts in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza. The objective of both flights is to shore up the truce on land between Israel and Hamas which, since its inception at 2:00 a.m. last Friday, May 21, they respect on a “reciprocal and unconditional” basis so fragile that it can be broken with a simple explosive balloon launched from Gaza into southern Israel.

The worst escalation since 2014 and especially the subsequent truce have reinforced the mediating role of Egypt and the cooperation of its president Abdelfatah al Sisi with Israel. As an 'extra' prize, the Egyptian rais has received the access key to the main door of the White House that he thought was closed with the tenant's replacement on January 20.

Ashkenazi and his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, discussed the Roadmap for the ceasefire and the reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas after 11 days of bombing. Israel, Egypt and the US want an international mechanism and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) chaired by Abu Mazen to channel aid to Gaza, while Hamas clarified to the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on his recent visit to “stay out of how we solve internal problems”.

Before meeting Abu Mazen this afternoon and traveling to Gaza tomorrow, Kamel held a meeting with the Israeli prime minister to ensure that the fire does not ignite again.. “One of the issues they discussed was the mechanisms to prevent Hamas from rearming and seizing the resources sent to the civilian population,” according to the Netanyahu Cabinet.

After pledging $500 million in aid to Gaza, Qatar says it has no objection to Hamas continuing to monitor aid, as it has done in recent years.. “What matters to us is to obtain the desired result. We are not wasting time or dealing with changing the money transfer mechanism,” Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said.. The emirate financially helps those most in need in Gaza and the Hamas regime while hosting its leadership in Doha. Although Iran is the great political, armed and economic umbrella of the Gaza militias, including the warlike duel against their common enemy, as can be seen from information in media related to the Lebanese group Hezbollah and from statements by spokespersons for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Israel conditions the large-scale reconstruction of Gaza on Hamas not rearming and on the handover of Avera Mengistu and Hisham Sayed, two mentally challenged Israeli civilians who arrived in Gaza by mistake and of their own free will, and the bodies of soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, killed in the 2014 war. Hamas demands an exchange of Palestinian prisoners disconnecting it from the truce.

Beyond the 254 dead, including 66 children, and 1,900 injured, Gaza has suffered the partial or complete destruction of thousands of houses. As Gazans have packed their beach in recent days, relishing the calm after the most intense Israeli airstrike in living memory, Hamas's armed wing holds parades in the streets displaying shells and militants.. After two weeks in a bunker, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar appeared at various public events challenging Israel to keep its promise to kill him (“dying a martyr would be the best gift”).

Since its projectiles against Jerusalem on May 10, beginning the escalation, Hamas warns that the formula has changed and that it will respond to what happens in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood (evacuation plan for several Palestinian families according to a court ruling). and the Al Aqsa Mosque. “All parties understood that this campaign was created for Jerusalem,” proclaims the Islamist leader Ismail Haniyah in a message reinforced a few days ago by the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel, where 12 people died, including two children, and 400 were injured, warned that Sinwar and the leader of the armed wing, Mohamed Deif, remain “legitimate targets” of their missiles.. Jihad leader Ziad Najaleh warns: “We warn the enemy. To any attack against our fighters and officers, we will react directly with a bombardment of your capital Tel Aviv.”