Israel's prime minister heading for fifth election after Gaza conflict saves political career

Israel's prime minister is heading for a fifth election with a significant boost to his credibility in the wake of the Gaza conflict, even as his rivals plot behind the scenes to remove him from power.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who just a fortnight ago was set to be dethroned by a former right-wing protege, has stepped back into his "Mr Security" persona after 11 days of intense fighting with Hamas.

Meanwhile, his rivals' hopes of cobbling together enough support for a wafer-thin majority of 61 seats in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, have crumbled.

Naftali Bennett, a former Likud minister who has long sought to step out of Mr Netanyahu's shadow, abruptly scrapped plans to become the head of a new "change" government last week.

Other senior members of the so-called "anti-Netanyahu" coalition, such as Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, have vowed to continue talks on forming a government despite the loss of Mr Bennett.

Mr Lapid has even suggested that Mr Netanyahu may have engineered the Gaza conflict in a desperate bid to keep himself in power.

"If we had a government, security considerations would not be mixed with political considerations," he claimed in a post on Facebook. "No one would ask themselves why the fire always breaks out just when it's most convenient for the prime minister."

With coalition talks in turmoil, and few indications that the anti-Netanyahu faction can survive without Mr Bennett, Israel is now facing yet another election, the fifth in just two and a half years.

The timing of the conflict could not have been more auspicious for Mr Netanyahu, who is also facing an ongoing trial on corruption charges that he strongly denies.

A former special forces commando, the 71-year-old has spent decades cultivating an image of himself as the only leader capable of defending Israel from its arch-enemies.

They include, in addition to Hamas in Gaza, the Islamic Republic which has faced accusations of funding the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

And in the north, Israel has come under attack three times in the past week from Palestinian militants in southern Lebanon who have fired rockets at Israeli towns.

Israel is also facing severe security issues within its own borders, after Jewish and Arab mobs torched each other's schools, cars businesses across Israeli cities last week.

Some of the worst violence occurred in the central city of Lod, where a Jewish man was killed after a group of Arabs hurled a brick at his head. An Arab man was also shot dead by a Jewish assailant.