Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has fired ministers Ayelet Shaked and Naftali Bennett, removing the two New Right leaders from his cabinet.
The Prime Minister’s Office informed Bennett and Shaked Sunday afternoon that they would no longer be serving as Education Minister and Justice Minister respectively, following the failure of their party to cross the electoral threshold in the April 9th election.
The removal of the two New Right ministers will go into effect on Tuesday.
Bennett and Shaked, who had run in 2015 at the head of the Jewish Home ticket, broke off in December 2018 to form the New Right. While the party initially was projected to win more than 10 seats, the New Right ultimately failed to cross the electoral threshold, leaving Bennett and Shaked out of the 21st Knesset.
Earlier on Sunday, it was reported that Netanyahu was considering revamping his transitional government ahead of this September’s Knesset election, with the aim of strengthening the Likud party’s position within the government.
Rabbi Rafi Peretz, chief of the Union of Right-Wing Parties, a joint list of the Jewish Home and National Union, had prepared a letter formally demanding that Netanyahu to fire Shaked and Bennett, and transfer the ministries back to the Jewish Home, giving current Jewish Home MKs the ministries. But Peretz ultimately held off on sending the letter to Netanyahu, after MK Bezalel Smotrich, chairman of the National Union faction, urged him not to make the demand formal.
Netanyahu has reportedly refused calls from within the Likud to recruit Shaked into the party and grant her a spot high on the Likud’s Knesset slate for the September election.