Moshe Yaalon has resigned as Israeli defence minister, saying that "Israel, as well as the Likud party, has been taken over by dangerous and extreme elements."
The former Chief of General Staff in the military, who was a member of the prime minister’s Likud party, will also leave the Knesset.
He explained that Likud in its present form "is not the Likud that I joined, of Jabotinsky and Begin,” criticising senior politicians who he said “have chosen incitement as means to hold on to power, rather than uniting the society.”
Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, has been offered the defence portfolio and is expected to take over from Mr Yaalon later today, with his party joining the coalition government.
