Benjamin Netanyahu has won a reprieve from the threat of early elections in Israel after a senior member of his cabinet announced he would not resign and break up the coalition government.Naftali Bennett, the hardliner education minister, was widely expected to quit during a press conference on Monday morning but instead said in a surprise announcement that his Jewish Home party would give the prime minister another chance.

Bennett, a security hawk, had considered following Netanyahu’s defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who left the Israeli government to protest against Netanyahu’s decision to agree to a truce with the rulers of Gaza, Hamas. The Tuesday ceasefire followed the most intense round of fighting since the war in 2014, as militants and Israeli forces battled each other with rockets and airstrikes.

Bennett had threatened to bring down the government if he was not appointed defence minister, a portfolio Netanyahu gave to himself on Sunday. If the education minister had left, he would have stripped the prime minister of his parliamentary majority and triggered early polls.(theguardian)…[+]