Netanyahu challenge to legality of rival’s PM bid is rebuffed

Netanyahu accused opponents of imperiling Israel as it contends with internal Jewish-Arab strife over the Gaza attack.

A last-gasp legal challenge by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to thwart a bid by a rival rightist to head a new government has been rejected as his opponents raced to seal a pact that would unseat him. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s former defence minister, had announced on Sunday that he would join a proposed alliance with centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, serving as its prime minister first under a rotation deal. They have until Wednesday midnight (21:00 GMT) to present a final pact to Rivlin, who handed Lapid the task of forming a new government after Netanyahu failed to do so in the wake of a close election on March 23.