Kathmandu Jun 3 (Agencies) Opposition parties in Israel have agreed to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for 12 years.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said in an email on Wednesday that he had agreed to form a new government 35 minutes before the deadline set by the president.

“I am just happy to announce that I have succeeded in forming a new government,” he wrote in an email.

According to Reuters, President Reuven Rivlin was watching football when Lapid’s email arrived. He immediately telephoned and congratulated Lapid.

Opposition groups called for Naphtali Bennett to be named prime minister. Two years later, he agreed to step down as prime minister and to handover Lapid as prime minister.

Other small and medium parties are also participating in their alliance. For the first time, Israel’s Arab minority party United Arab least will also join the government.

According to the latest election results from March 23, Netanyahu’s Likud party has 30 seats in the 120-member Knesset parliament. He has formed alliances with three other religious and nationalist parties.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has faced various charges during his 12 years in power. He is the prime minister whose corruption case is being investigated and he remains in the PM’s chair.

Lately, external problems have also been added to him. With Joe Biden elected US president, Netanyahu has found it impossible to maintain relations with Palestine and Iran as they did under Donald Trump. While Trump has been very supportive of Netanyahu, Biden does not appear to be doing so.

Netanyahu reacted with anger at the turn of events.

“This will be a dangerous, left-wing government,” the prime minister said in a statement after Rivlin announced his selection of Lapid, “a lethal combination of incompetence and irresponsibility.”

Lapid is the most liberal of the rivals who lined up to challenge Netanyahu in the March election, Israel’s fourth in less than two years. The son of a former justice minister and a novelist, Lapid achieved celebrity status as a television news anchor in the 1990s and 2000s. He now heads the center-left Yesh Atid (There Is a Future) party, one of the largest opposition factions in the Knesset.