JERUSALEM, Oct 25, 2026 (Net) – Israel will hold a general election on
October 27, with veteran Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu locked in a tight
race to stay in power.
Here are his main rivals:
– Gadi Eisenkot: The general –
The son of Moroccan immigrants, ex-army chief Gadi Eisenkot, 66, has emerged
as Netanyahu’s main rival, with polls putting the two neck and neck in the
final days before the vote.
While he lacks his opponent’s political experience, he enjoys public sympathy
following the death in combat of his son Gal and two of his nephews during
the Gaza war.
Seen as belonging to the centre-right, Eisenkot has expressed some public
positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that maintain the current
government’s tough line — for instance, vowing to prevent the creation of a
Palestinian state and to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza within 18 months if
elected.
He has also expressed support for Israeli settlements in the occupied West
Bank, but has promised to crack down on settlers who have attacked
Palestinians with impunity under Netanyahu’s staunchly pro-settlement
government.
Eisenkot resigned from Netanyahu’s war cabinet in 2024, and has become a
scathing critic of the premier’s leadership.
He founded his own party Yashar, meaning “Straight”, in 2025. He would be the
first prime minister of Middle Eastern or North African descent.
– Naftali Bennett: The right-wing alternative –
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, 54, leads the centre-right Beyahad
party, which is polling in third place.
The former tech entrepreneur and son of American immigrants established
himself as a leading figure in the nationalist right and settler movement,
but has since presented himself as a secular centrist.
Bennett caused a stir in 2021 by forming a diverse coalition government
spanning the Israeli political spectrum, with the unprecedented support of an
Arab party.
It brought an end to Netanyahu’s 12 uninterrupted years in power, but
Bennett’s government only lasted a year.
Israeli commentators believe he can attract right-wing voters who are
disappointed with Netanyahu but do not want to move leftward.
Despite his fierce criticism of him, Bennett has voiced openness to including
Netanyahu in an opposition-led coalition government.
– Yair Lapid: The former TV journalist –
Once a star television journalist, Yair Lapid, 62, swiftly established
himself as one of Netanyahu’s main opponents when he founded the centrist
Yesh Atid party in 2012.
Lapid has served as finance and foreign minister and briefly took over as
prime minister in 2022 as part of a power-sharing deal with Bennett, with
whom he is again allied.
An avowed secularist, Lapid has the polish of a TV star and is ever-present
on social media, routinely taking Netanyahu to task with biting commentary.
But few observers see him winning on his own as he struggles to win voters
beyond his core base of urban and secular Israelis.
– Avigdor Lieberman: The secular nationalist –
Born in Soviet Moldova in 1958, Avigdor Lieberman moved to Israel in the late
1970s and is a veteran of the political scene, taking a hardline nationalist
stance on national security while staying staunchly secular.
The founder of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Lieberman initially relied on the
Russian-speaking electorate before gradually broadening his base.
He was once a close Netanyahu associate, with some crediting Lieberman with
helping engineer the premier’s razor-thin upset victory in 1996 that first
brought him to power.
Lieberman now regularly criticises Netanyahu in heated terms, calling him a
failure on security.
Lieberman is one of the few politicians to have headed three of Israel’s key
ministries — foreign, defence and finance.
– Mansour Abbas: The potential kingmaker –
Arab-Israeli party leader Mansour Abbas is seeking to mobilise his community,
which makes up 20 percent of the population, to prevent Netanyahu’s return to
power.
Abbas’s Raam became the first Arab party to join an Israeli government in
Bennett’s 2021 coalition and he could again be a kingmaker if the opposition
agrees to rely on his lawmakers to oust Netanyahu.
In a recent interview with AFP, the former dentist vowed to bring out voters
to replace Netanyahu’s “racist, fascist right-wing government”.
Netanyahu has tried to tarnish Jewish opposition leaders by constantly
raising the spectre that they would team up with Abbas, whose roots are in
political Islam.
Seeking to broaden support, Abbas has taken the unprecedented step of tapping
an Israeli Jew, former police official Yoav Segalovitz, as a candidate on his
party’s slate.
– Yair Golan: The remaining liberal –
After years of Israel shifting to the right, Yair Golan’s party The Democrats
represents what remains of the mainstream left, including remnants of the
Labour Party that led Israel without interruption for the country’s first
three decades.
Golan is the only major Israeli political leader who still explicitly backs a
two-state solution with the Palestinians.
He is also liberal on social issues, calling for Israel to allow gay marriage
and to let public transportation run on the Jewish Sabbath.
A former senior military officer, Golan volunteered to return to duty
immediately when Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023, picking up a gun and
within hours personally rescuing people in his car.
