Reports of progress in negotiations with Yisrael Beiteinu as Netanyahu struggles to form coalition
No coalition deals have been made yet, a first in Israeli electoral history so late in the process.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still struggling to form a coalition, just a week before the extended deadline.
Netanyahu earlier this week blasted his potential coalition partners for making 'exorbitant demands,' with senior Likud officials even saying on Monday this might lead to another election.
Last week, the prime minister said he might be looking at a minority government to break the deadlock.
No deals have yet been made with any of Likud's potential coalition partners, for the first time in Israeli electoral history.
Hebrew media was awash with contradictory rumors about the two big sticking points in the coalition negotiations: the immunity law, crucial to Netanyahu's survival from criminal proceedings, and the draft law, which pits the secular and ultra-Orthodox wings of the next government against one another.
Ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism (UTJ) leader, Yaakov Litzman, who is also in the spotlight for allegedly protecting sexual offenders from prosecution, said at a conference for activists on Tuesday that negotiations were still ongoing.
"We haven't yet reached an agreement on the big issues - draft law, Shabbat, education," he said, as reported by Arutz 7. "I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about the basics, we're still in the middle of the negotiations."
A meeting set for Wednesday between Likud and UTJ was postponed, before being cancelled due to the country entering Lag baOmer holiday celebrations.
Meanwhile, sources inside Israel Beiteinu, the secular-nationalist party that tabled the draft law, reported there had been 'progress' in the negotiations.
Another wing of the upcoming coalition, the pro-settlement, national-religious right, lamented the fact that Netanyahu was seen to pull away from previous agreements, and his commitment to the settlement enterprise.
Party sources talking to the religious Kipa news outlet said that there had been no contact between the Union of Right Wing Parties and Likud in the last week.