Yair Lapid

Yair Lapid, born in Tel Aviv in 1963, is the son of the journalist and Shinui party leader Tommy Lapid, a Holocaust survivor from Novi Sad. A columnist, novelist and popular television anchor, he founded the centrist, secular-leaning Yesh Atid party in 2012, won 19 seats in his first election and served as finance minister in 2013–2014. In 2021 he assembled the unusual "change government" of eight parties, from the right-wing Yamina to the Islamist Ra'am, the first Arab party to join an Israeli coalition, and under a rotation deal let Naftali Bennett serve first while he became foreign minister.

When the coalition collapsed, Lapid became Israel's 14th prime minister on 1 July 2022 and led a caretaker government until 29 December 2022. In that time he oversaw Operation Breaking Dawn against Islamic Jihad in Gaza in August, concluded the US-mediated maritime border agreement with Lebanon in October and endorsed a two-state solution at the UN. After the November 2022 election returned Benjamin Netanyahu to power, Lapid became leader of the opposition.