Israel's Lapid Takes Premiership At Holocaust Remembrance Center

Incoming Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid took the premiership on Thursday by visiting the Holocaust Remembrance Center (Yad Vashem).

Usually, Israeli officials go to the Al-Buraq Wall (Western Wall) at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem before and after receiving official duties.

But Lapid, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid (There Is a Future) Party, preferred to start his assumption of office from another place.

"Immediately after the vote in the Knesset, I went to the World Holocaust Remembrance Center," Lapid said on Twitter. "There I promised my late father that I will always keep Israel strong and capable of defending itself and protecting its children."

On Thursday, Israeli lawmakers voted to pass the final readings of a bill to dissolve the Knesset (Israel's parliament), paving the way for snap elections slated for Nov. 1.

According to a recent agreement with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Lapid will become a caretaker premier until a new Cabinet is formed after the upcoming elections. Bennett, who has announced that he will not stand in the upcoming polls, will become an alternate prime minister for Lapid.

Public opinion polls in Israel indicate the superiority of the right-wing Likud party headed by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is still unable to reach the threshold of 61 votes out of 120 required to form a government.

The upcoming elections are the fifth in less than four years, during which Netanyahu failed four times to form a government despite his party's victory in the elections.

*Writing by Bassel Barakat in Ankara -