The Likud Party member replaces Eli Cohen, who will take up the Energy and Infrastructure portfolio.

The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, on Monday approved the appointment of Israel Katz as foreign minister.

Under a rotation agreement, the Likud Party member replaces, effective immediately, Eli Cohen as Jerusalem’s top diplomat.

Cohen, also a Likud member, will replace Katz as energy and infrastructure minister and continue to serve in the high-level Security Cabinet.

Katz, 68, the son of Romanian Holocaust survivors, first ran for Knesset in 1996 and previously served as foreign minister from February 2019 to May 2020. He has also held the Agriculture, Transport, Finance and Intelligence portfolios.

Katz has served as energy and infrastructure minister since the Netanyahu-led government came to power in December of last year.

On Tuesday, the  Israeli foreign affairs ministry held a handover ceremony  to officially mark the rotation of the ministerial position.

Outgoing Foreign Minister Cohen presented a long list of achievements made during his tenure in the year 2023, such as an unprecedented number of world leaders who visited Israel to express their solidarity with the Jewish state following the deadly Hamas attack on October 7.

“Since October 7, the Ministry’s employees have been working around the clock, and their intensive work has led to visits by an unprecedented number of world leaders and diplomats,” Cohen was quoted as saying.

“Three months into the war, the number of Western countries calling for a ceasefire can be counted on the fingers of one hand,” Cohen added.

In addition, the ministry worked to raise international awareness of the hostages held in Gaza, after being abducted by the terrorist organization Hamas. Part of which included delegations of the hostages’ families that were accompanied by Israeli diplomats around the world.

Other achievements over the past year included the aforementioned visits by international leaders, the opening of four embassies in Jerusalem, new Israeli embassies inaugurated in Muslim-majority Azerbaijan and Chad, the opening of Omani airspace to flights from Israel, and highlighted the strengthened ties with Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan.

“Over the past year, we have worked to promote the international status of the State of Israel, strengthen diplomatic relations and advance the country’s economic and security interests,” Cohen summarized.