Mr Avigdor Lieberman (38), a Soviet immigrant and former nightclub bouncer who rose to become the most important aide to the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday resigned his position as directorgeneral of the Prime Minister's Office.
His departure leaves Mr Netanyahu badly weakened, and his hold on power further undermined, at a time of worsening relations with the Palestinians, the rest of the Arab world, the United States, Europe, international Jewry and even his own party colleagues.
Bearded, broad-shouldered and deceptively soft-spoken, Mr Lieberman had been Mr Netanyahu's right-hand man for the past decade, smoothing his path to ever greater power.
He ran the Prime Minister's first campaign for a parliamentary seat in 1988, helped steer him to the Likud party leadership five years later, and played a vital behind-the-scenes role in Mr Netanyahu's election victory in May 1996.
His sudden departure is a crippling blow for the Prime Minister, particularly as it appears that Mr Lieberman is departing in anger.
Members of Mr Netanyahu's Likud party have been calling for Mr Lieberman to go, blaming him for pushing through recent controversial changes to the system by which the Likud selects its Knesset candidates.
But while it had been predicted that Mr Lieberman might sacrifice his job to help Mr Netanyahu calm that storm, but would quietly retain a key position of influence, there were indications last night he was quitting because his boss has bowed to party pressure and promised to reconsider the changes to the selection procedures.
The loss of Mr Lieberman renders Mr Netanyahu a solitary figure, and bolsters the impression of government instability.
Almost all his ministers have expressed mistrust and dissatisfaction with his leadership in the past few days. Senior Likud figures are plotting openly to bring him down.
Israeli television interviewers this weekend treated him with contempt, interrupting him repeatedly as he tried to dodge their questions about his collapsing credibility.
Apart from the internal revolt, the Prime Minister is grappling with increased tension in the West Bank, where there were several anti-Israeli demonstrations over the weekend; a Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops in Bethlehem on Saturday, apparently after running an army roadblock; another Palestinian died in a mysterious explosion on Friday.
President Clinton is still refusing to meet Mr Netanyahu, and is now accusing him of breaking a pledge to suspend settlement building.
Mr Netanyahu denies making any such pledge, and spoke yesterday, during a visit to the spot where a Jewish seminary student was murdered last week in the Old City, of expanding Jewish settlement in predominantly Arab areas of Jerusalem.
If he does that, a Palestinian leader, Mr Faisal Husseini, warned, "rivers of blood" would flow as a consequence. If, by contrast, he tries to please the Americans and Palestinians by halting building, his right-wing coalition partners say flatly they will vote him out of office.
Reuters adds: Israeli military sources said Lebanon's Amal guerrillas killed at least eight Lebanese civilians and wounded 13 yesterday in fire directed at Israel's self-declared south Lebanon occupation zone.
The Shia Amal movement denied involvement in the killing, accusing Israel of being behind it. Lebanese state radio reported nine people had died.
Women, children and old men were the main victims of the attack.
A 37-year-old Lebanese woman in a village north of the occupation zone was wounded in the shelling, Lebanese security sources said.
A few hours later Israeli planes twice hit suspected guerrilla bases in the region facing the area of the dawn attack, the sources said.