Israeli opposition leader urges Netanyahu to negotiate date for new elections

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid on Monday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate a date for new elections.

"I have a proposal for Benjamin Netanyahu: let's sit down, you and I, the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, and set a date," Lapid said during a meeting of his Yesh Atid Party's parliamentary bloc.

The opposition leader argued that elections are "inevitable."

"It will take another month, two more months. In the end it will come," Lapid said. "There are enough people in your coalition who can't take it anymore," he added, terming Netanyahu's current government "dangerous to the people of Israel."

"After the greatest disaster in the country's history, we need a government that will regain the trust of the public, the trust of the security system, that will have a plan for the day after," Lapid said in statements cited by The Times of Israel newspaper.

There was no comment yet from Netanyahu on Lapid's call.

Calls have grown for holding fresh elections in Israel amid criticism of Netanyahu over his failure to acknowledge responsibility for a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

Opinion polls conducted by Israeli media in the past days suggested that if early elections were held now, Netanyahu would be unable to form a government, while former Defense Minister and war cabinet member Benny Gantz is considered the most likely to succeed.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, killing at least 25,295 people and injuring 63,000 others, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed.

The deadly onslaught has left 85% of Gaza's population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.