Overview
- More than 7 million Israeli voters will choose 120 Knesset members on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, in a race widely cast as a direct verdict on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and leader of the centre‑right Yashar party, is the principal challenger and has pledged a formal inquiry into the security failures around the October 7, 2023 attack.
- Eisenkot combines hardline security promises — including a vow to dismantle Hamas within a set timeframe — with domestic reforms to protect judicial independence, limit ultra‑Orthodox service exemptions, and strengthen minority and LGBTQ legal protections.
- The campaign has intensified deep social fractures that date to 2023 judicial‑reform protests and the 2023–24 wars, with incidents such as a racially charged comment on Channel 14 underscoring tensions over ethnicity and political style.
- Because Israel uses proportional representation, the vote will force coalition negotiations after the result and will directly shape policy on national security, the courts and settler violence in the occupied territories.