Benjamin Netanyahu was removed from office on Sunday as prime minister of Israel, something that had already been anticipated since the beginning of June when the opposition sealed an agreement, but now it has officially happened.
The Israeli parliament appointed a new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, taking a key step toward approving a new coalition government that ends Netanyahu's 12-year term.
With 67 votes in the 120-member chamber, Parliament appointed Mickey Levy of the centrist Yesh Atid party as its new spokesperson.
Levy will succeed the current spokesperson, Yariv Levin, of Netanyahu's Likud party.
The move sets the stage for a confidence vote to approve a new coalition government later on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a Knesset session in Jerusalem on Sunday, June 13, 2021.
A coalition that came together to remove him survived a confidence vote in the Israeli parliament on Sunday,
overcoming the last hurdle in its path to unseat him
and seize a fragile grip on power.
The new government will be sworn in and send Netanyahu and the right-wing Likud party into opposition for the first time in more than a decade.
To salt Netanyahu's wound, Naftali Bennett, his former protégé and leader of the right, will be the next prime minister and will hold office for the first two years of the new government.
He will then hand over the job to Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party.
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