ISRAELI Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman resigned today in protest against the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Hamas, bringing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government close to collapse.

After two days of bloodshed, in which Israeli warplanes killed six Palestinians and Hamas fired hundreds of missiles into southern Israel, Mr Lieberman said he could no longer serve a government that endorsed the ceasefire and that the agreement amounted to a “surrender to terrorism.”

“What happened yesterday,” he said during a televised conference, “the truce combined with the process with Hamas, is capitulating to terror. It has no other meaning.