Naftali Bennett, who on Sunday replaced Israel's veteran premier Benjamin Netanyahu, is a multi-millionaire former tech entrepreneur who made his name in politics with hardline religious-nationalist rhetoric.
The 49-year-old, who has made pitches to hard-right voters throughout his career, leads the Yamina party, which has called for Israel to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
A bald politician with a discreet kippa and perfect American English, he is ultra-liberal on the economy and takes a hard line against Israel's arch-enemy, Iran.
He shares this ideology with Mr Netanyahu and has served in several of the Likud leader's governments, but in recent years the two have become increasingly opposed.
In the aftermath of 11 days of deadly fighting with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, Mr Bennett finally agreed to join centrist Yair Lapid in a coalition to oust the prime minister, who has been in power for 12 consecutive years as well as an earlier three-year term.
Mr Lapid and Mr Bennett will share power, letting Mr Bennett serve the first term in a rotating premiership.
Mr Bennett, in a Knesset speech before Sunday's vote, promised the new government, a coalition of ideologically divergent parties, "represents all of Israel".
He said the country, after four inconclusive elections in under two years, had been thrown "into a maelstrom of hatred and in-fighting".
"The time has come for different leaders, from all parts of the population, to stop, to stop this madness", he said, to angry shouts of "liar" and "criminal" from right-wing opponents.
Religious-nationalist Yamina won seven seats in the country's last general elections in March, although one member has refused to join an anti-Netanyahu coalition.
A controversial past
A former special forces commando, Mr Bennett is the son of US-born parents and lives with his wife Galit and four children in the central city of Raanana.
In 1996, he led a commando unit against Hezbollah during fighting in southern Lebanon. He was later blamed by Israeli publication Yedioth Ahronoth for the Qana massacre, in which at least 106 Lebanese civilians were killed by Israeli artillery fire. Four UN peacekeepers were among the wounded.
Over 800 civilians had been taking shelter from fighting in a UN compound. Mr Bennett was accused of setting off a chain of events that led to the deadly artillery strike, a charge he denies.
After leaving the army, he launched tech start-up which he eventually sold for $145 million in 2005, and the next year became chief of staff to Mr Netanyahu, who was then in opposition.
After leaving Mr Netanyahu's office, Mr Bennett in 2010 became head of the Yesha Council, which lobbies for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
He took politics by storm in 2012 by taking charge of the hard-right Jewish Home party, which was facing annihilation.
He increased its parliamentary presence fourfold, while making headlines with a series of incendiary comments about the Palestinians.
In 2013, he said Palestinian "terrorists should be killed, not released".
He also argued that the West Bank is not under occupation because "there was never a Palestinian state here", and that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could not be resolved but must be endured, like a piece of "shrapnel in the buttocks".
Beyond holding the defence portfolio, Mr Bennett has served as Mr Netanyahu's economy minister and education minister.
He rebranded Jewish Home as Yamina (Rightward) in 2018, and was part of Mr Netanyahu's coalition that collapsed in the same year.
He was not asked to join a Netanyahu-led unity government in May last year – a move seen as an expression of the premier's personal contempt towards him, despite their shared ideology.
In opposition and with the coronavirus pandemic raging in 2020, Mr Bennett dampened his right-wing rhetoric to focus on the health crisis, moving to broaden his appeal by releasing plans to contain the virus and aid the economy.
"In the next years we need to put aside politics and issues like annexation or a Palestinian state, and focus on gaining control over the coronavirus pandemic, healing the economy and mending internal rifts," he told Israel's widely listened-to Army Radio in November.
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- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
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More on animal trafficking
Sri Lanka's T20I squad
Thisara Perera (captain), Dilshan Munaweera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Ashan Priyanjan, Mahela Udawatte, Dasun Shanaka, Sachith Pathirana, Vikum Sanjaya, Lahiru Gamage, Seekkuge Prasanna, Vishwa Fernando, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay and Chathuranga de Silva.
HOW DO SIM CARD SCAMS WORK?
Sim swap frauds are a form of identity theft.
They involve criminals conning mobile phone operators into issuing them with replacement Sim cards, often by claiming their phone has been lost or stolen
They use the victim's personal details - obtained through criminal methods - to convince such companies of their identity.
The criminal can then access any online service that requires security codes to be sent to a user's mobile phone, such as banking services.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Western Region Asia Cup T20 Qualifier
Sun Feb 23 – Thu Feb 27, Al Amerat, Oman
The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
No Shame
Lily Allen
(Parlophone)
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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China
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Japan
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Canada
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
