Jerusalem: Israeli lawmakers Thursday voted to dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition before a midnight deadline, becoming the first prime minister-designate in the country's history who was unable to form a government. In little more than six weeks since they were elected, Israeli lawmakers voted 74-45 in favour of dissolving the 21st Knesset (Israeli Parliament) and hold an unprecedented repeat general elections on September 17.

Netanyahu's remarkable victory in the April 9 polls securing him a record fifth term proved temporary in the face of a logjam between potential coalition partners over a military conscription bill governing exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students. Ahead of the vote - taken just after the Wednesday midnight deadline, Netanyahu told the Likud faction that he had not succeeded in reaching a compromise with nationalist Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman on the controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription bill, and that he had also tried unsuccessfully to woo MKs from the opposition to join his government. Lieberman, a former defence minister, had made it a condition of allying with ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties that they adopt a law aimed at having ultra-Orthodox Jews serve in the military like their secular counterparts. The bill, which the Defense Ministry drafted under Liberman's leadership, sets rising annual targets for haredi conscription in the Israeli Defence Forces.