Rival politicians in Israel united only by their opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu could be closing in on a deal to oust the country’s longest-serving leader.

The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, a former TV news anchor popular with the country’s secular middle class, has until a Wednesday deadline to build a coalition government after Netanyahu failed to do so.

Local media reports suggested Lapid, 57, had made a power-sharing offer to a political foe, Naftali Bennett, 49, a former settler leader and hard-right religious nationalist who wants to annex most of the occupied West Bank.